PHRYGIA LYDIA i & HISTORY OF ART IN PHRYGIA, LYDIA, CARIA, AND LYCIA. HISTORY OF n rigp AND FROM THE FRENCH OF GEORGES PERROT, MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE J PROFESSOR IN THE FACULTY OF LETTERS, PARIS, AND CHARLES CHIPIEZ. ILLUSTRATED WITH TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY ENGRAVINGS. : CHAPMAN AND HALL, LIMITED. ork: A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON. 1892. CONTENTS. PHRYGIA, MYSIA, BITHYNIA, AND PAPHLAGONIA. CHAPTER I. PAGE THE PHRYGIAN NATION i § i. History and Origin of the Phrygians i — 23 § 2. Customs and Religion of the Phrygians 23 — 36 CHAPTER II. PHRYGIAN ART 37 § i. Sipylus and its Monuments 37 — 7° § 2. Architectural Characteristics of Phrygia Proper 70 — 78 § 3. Funereal Architecture 78 — 142 § 4. Religious Architecture 142 — 155 § 5. Military Architecture 155 — 164 § 6. Sculpture 164 — 178 § 7. Ornament and Industrial Arts 179 — 192 § 8. Tombs in Paphlagonia 192 — 211 § 9. General Characteristics of Phrygian Civilization and its Influence upon Hellenic Culture 211 — 231 LYDIA AND CARIA. CHAPTER I. THE LYDIANS, THEIR COUNTRY, HISTORY, AND RELIGION . * . 232 — 257 CHAPTER II. ART IN LYDIA 258 § i. Architecture 258 — 280 § 2. Sculpture and Numismatics 280 — 285 § 3. Industrial Arts 285 — 298 § 4. General Characteristics of Lydian Civilization 298 — 301 « j vi CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. PAGE CARIA 302 § i. History of the Carians 302 — 309 § 2. Funereal Architecture 309 — 313 § 3. Religious and Military Architecture 314 — 319 § 4. Industrial Arts 319 — 327 § 5. General Characteristics of Carian Civilization 327 — 330 LYCIA CHAPTER I. THE LYCIANS, THEIR COUNTRY, HISTORY, AND RELIGION .... 331 § i. The Country ............... 33! — 337 § 2. History ................ 337—353 CHAPTER II. ARCHITECTURE ..... ............ 354 § i. Funerary Architecture ........ .... 354 _ 377 § 2. Towns and their Defences ........... 377 _ 381 CHAPTER III. SCULPTURE ................. 382—391 CHAPTER IV. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF LYCIAN CIVILIZATION . ?n2 sn? oy*} 6\J6 INDEX 401-405 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 1. Inscription on the so-called Tomb of Midas ... .... 8 2. Phrygian alphabet 8 3. Phrygian inscription 31 4. Archi-Gallus 33 5. Cybele enthroned. Coin 35 6. Cybele seated on lion. Coin 35 7. Map of Sipylus 38 8. View of the lamanlar Dagh from the quay of Smyrna 39 9. Topographical sketch north-west of the plain of Bournabat ..... 40 10. Post of observation on Sipylus 41 11. Acropolis, lamanlar Dagh 43 12. Northern wall of Acropolis 44 13. Gateway to Acropolis 45 14. View of tomb of Tantalus 46 15. Plan of tomb of Tantalus . 47 16. Chamber of tomb of Tantalus. Longitudinal section 47 17. Chamber of tomb of Tantalus. Transverse section 47 1 8. 19. Terminal phalli 49 20,21. Tumuli built of uncemented stones 50 22. Plan of sanctuary, lamanlar Dagh 51 23. Sanctuary. Section through A B 52 24. Sanctuary. Plan of chamber 52 25. Sanctuary. Wall of chamber 53 26. Sanctuary. Section through FH 53 27. Sanctuary. Wall of enclosure on the north-west 53 28. Topographical sketch of northern slope of Sipylus, east of Magnesia . . 57 29. larik Kaia. Topographical sketch 58 30. Plan of houses 59 31. Rock-cut dwellings. Perspective view 60 32. Niche hollowed in the rock. Perspective view 60 33. Niche hollowed in the rock. Longitudinal section 61 34. Tomb excavated in the rock, near Magnesia. Perspective view ... 62 35. Tomb near Magnesia. Plan 62 36. Tomb near Magnesia. Longitudinal section 63 viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 37. Tomb near Magnesia. Transverse section 64 38. Tomb near Magnesia. Horizontal projection of upper part .... 64 39. Tomb near Phocaea. Perspective view 65 40. Tomb near Phocaea. Plan 66 41. Tomb near Phocaea. Longitudinal section 66 42. Bust carved in the rock 68 43. 44. Wooden houses near Kumbet 71 45. View of Kumbet 72 46. Plan of house hollowed in the rock, Kumbet 75 47. Phrygian necropoles. Topographical sketch 77 48. The Midas monument 81 49. False door to the Midas monument 84 50. Delikli Tach. Perspective view 87 51. Delikli Tach. Detail of doorway 89 52. Delikli Tach. Perspective section through transverse axis .... 91 53. Delikli Tach. Plan of vault 93 54. Delikli Tach. Profile of lintel on inner jamb 93 55. Delikli Tach. Profile of lintel on exterior jamb 93 56. Delikli Tach. Tinted scroll on soffit 94 57. Delikli Tach. Engraved characters on jamb of doorway 94 58. Rock-cut fagade 95 59. Rock-cut fagade 99 60. Tomb in the Ayazeen necropolis 102 6 1. Rock-cut facade. Perspective view 103 62. Plan of tomb at Bakshish 105 63. Tomb showing mouth of well 105 64. Tomb in the Ayazeen necropolis 107 65. The Broken Tomb. Present state in 66. The Broken Tomb. Restored plan no 67. The Broken Tomb. Restored transverse section through north face . 113 68. The Broken Tomb. Transverse section through back of vault . . . 113 69. The Broken Tomb. Restored longitudinal section through west face . 114 70. The Broken Tomb. Restored longitudinal section through east face . 114 71. The Broken Tomb. Restored view of interior of vault 115 72-74. Tomb near Pishmish Kaleh. Plan, facade, and section . . . . 118 75. Tomb at Yapuldak. Elevation of the fagade and section through the axis of the same . 120 76. A hieroglyphic character 120 77. Tomb near Ayazeen. Fagade 122 78-81. Plan and three transverse sections of the tomb 123, 124 82. Tomb at Ayazeen 127 83. The Kumbet tomb. General view 125 84. The Kumbet tomb. Fagade 128 85. 86. The Kumbet tomb. Plan and longitudinal section 129 87. The Kumbet tomb. Heads carved on cornice 130 88. The Kumbet tomb. Palmette at angle of cornice 130 89. The Kumbet tomb. Inscription 131 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. ix FIG. PAGE 90. Tomb at Yapuldak 132 91. Gherdek Kaiasi. Restored facade 134 92. Tomb at Ayazeen 136 93-96. Ionic capital. Present state, perspective view. Plan. Lateral elevation. Elevation 137 97. Calathiform capital and profile of shaft and entablature 137 98. Elevation and profile of pilaster in Broken Tomb 138 99. Plans of pilaster, above the base and commencement of capital . . . 138 zoo. Valley of Doghanlou and Midas city. Topographical sketch . . . . 142 101. Rock-cut altar and bas-relief 143 102. Rock-cut altar 144 103. 104. Rock-cut altars 145 105. Rock-cut altar. Section through axis 146 106. Rock-cut altar 146 107. Figure of Cybele 147 1 08. Arslan Kaia. General view 149 109. Arslan Kaia. Western face 152 no. Arslan Kaia. Bas-relief on end wall of chamber 153 in. Figure of Cybele carved in niche 154 112. Pishmish Kaleh. View of hill 156 113. Pishmish Kaleh. Plan 157 114. Pishmish Kaleh. Inner view of rock-cut rampart 159 115. 116. The two sides of a stone ram 165 117. Bas-relief of Broken Tomb 169 118. Bas-relief of Broken Tomb 168 119. Helmet, from early Greek vase with black figures . . • . . < . 172 120. Lion of Broken Tomb 174 121. Broken Tomb. Restoration of rampant lion 177 122. Broken Tomb. Restoration of two lions facing each other .... 177 123. Tomb near lasili Kaia. Elevation 180 124,125. Tomb near lasili Kaia. Plan and transverse section .... 181 126. Tomb near lasili Kaia. Perspective view of main chamber . . . . 183 127. Tomb of the Ayazeen necropolis. Door-frame 186 128. Scroll on sepulchral facade 187 129. Turkish woman at her loom 189 130. Comb of carpet-maker 190 131. Tomb at Kastamouni. General plan 195 T32> J33- Kastamouni. Tomb i. Frontal. Ceiling of chamber . . . 196 X34> J35- Kastamouni. Tombs 2 and 4. Transverse sections .... 196 136. Hambar Kaia. General view . 197 137. Hambar Kai'a. Plan of tomb 199 138. Hambar Kaia. Column 199 139. Hambar Kai'a. Fa$ade of tomb 200 140. Iskelib. General view 201 141. Iskelib. Tomb I. Plan • 203 142. Iskelib. Tomb I. Elevation of porch 203 143. Iskelib. Tomb I. Transverse section through back of chamber . . 204 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. FIG. PAGE 144. Iskelib. Tomb III. Plan 204 145, 146. Iskelib. Tomb III. Transverse and longitudinal section . . . 205 147. Iskelib. Tomb III. Imitation of a wooden loft 205 148. Iskelib. Tomb III. Transverse section through back of chamber . . 205 149. Iskelib. Tomb IV. View of fa9ade 206 150,151. Iskelib. Tomb IV. Plan and transverse section 207 152. Iskelib. Tomb I. Section under porch 209 153. Site and ruins of Sardes. Topographical sketch 242 154. View of Acropolis, Sardes 244 155. Scene in Egyptian market-place 251 156. Weighing of gold ingots, Egypt 252 157. Necropolis and environs of Sardes. Map 259 158. View of tomb of Alyattes 261 159. Plan of tomb of Alyattes 262 1 60. Perspective view of interior of tomb 263 1 6 1. Inner view of doorway 264 162. Passage 265 163. Section of tumulus 266 164. Section of restored tumulus 266 165. Terminal stone 266 166-169. Lydian tomb. Plan, sealing slab, two sections 268, 269 170-173. Lydian tomb. Plan, two sections, sealing slab 269, 270 174-176. Lydian tomb. Plan, section, aspect of facing 270,271 177. Tumulus. Plan and section 271 178. Funereal bed 272 179. Funereal bed, with painted ornaments 273 1 80. Tumulus at Belevi. Notch cut in the rock 274 181,182. General view and plan of tumulus 274,275 183,184. Longitudinal section. Plan of chambers 275,276 185. Perspective view of second chamber 276 1 86, 187. Third chamber. Two sections 277 188, 189. Two Lydian coins 282, 283 190, 191. Two Lydian coins 283 192. Lydian coin 284 193. Alabastron 285 194,195. Vases from the tomb of Alyattes 286 196-199. Fragments of vases from the tomb of Alyattes 286 200-202. Fragments of vases from Bin Tepe 287 203. Lydian plaque 288 204. Back view of Lydian trinkets 289 205. 206. Lydian personal ornaments 290 207, 208. Lydian gold ornaments 291 209. Mould of serpentine 293 210. Mould of serpentine 295 211. Phrygian funereal couch 297 212. Carian inscription 304 213. Tomb near lasus 310 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xi FIG. PAGE 214,215. Tumulus at Assarlik. Plan and section 310,311 216,217. Tumulus at Gheresl Plan and section 311,312 218. Tumulus and surrounding wall 312 219. Funereal enceinte, Caria .... . 313 220. Leleges' Wall. Plan 315 221. Gateway in Lelegian wall 316 222. Lelegian wall. Plan of tower and rampart 317 223. Lelegian wall. View of tower 317 224. Portion of plan of Alinda ... 318 225. Wall near Myndus 318 226-230. Carian pottery 320 231, 232. Vases from Idrias 321 233. Vases from Idrias, showing ornament 323 234. Carian pottery 322 235. 236. Fragments of pithos 325 237. Slab from sarcophagus 325 238-241. Slabs from sarcophagus 326 242. Bronze fibula 327 243. Stone statuettes 329 244. Map of the Xanthus Valley 333 245. Map of the plateau of Elmalu 334 246. Lycian alphabet 342 247. View of the Xanthus valley 345 248. View of Tlos 347 249. Lycian house, made of unsquared timber 356 250. Tomb at Keuibashi 357 251. Tomb at Hoiran 358 252. Views of cities, Pinara 361 253. Views of cities, Pinara 362 254. House at Ghendova 363 255. House at Ghieuben 363 256> 257. Lycian stores 364 258. Hut at Kurje Keui 365 259. Store at the Villards de Thones (Savoy) 365 260. Tomb at Hoiran 366 261. Tomb at Pinara 367 262. Tomb at Phellus 368 263. Plan of tomb at Pinara 369 264. Tomb at Myra 370 265. Tomb at Pinara 371 266. Tomb at Antiphellus 372 267. Sarcophagus at Antiphellus 373 268. Funerary tomb at Xanthus 375 269. View of Lycian town 378 270. View of Lycian tomb 378 271. Plan of fortress, Pidnai 379 272. Wall at Pidnai 380 xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. FIG. PAGE 273-275. Bas-reliefs on tomb, Trysa 383 276. Tomb at Xanthus. Small side 384 277. Tomb at Xanthus. Corner view 385 278. Tomb at Xanthus. Long side 386 279. Tomb at Xanthus. Long side 387 280. Tomb at Xanthus. Small side 388 TAIL-PIECES. Reverse of coin, Pessinus 36 Bust of Midas on coin, Prymnessus 231 Monetiform ingot, ^Egina, in the Cabinet de France 257 Electrum stater, attributed to a king of Lydia 301 Reverse of coin. Zeus Stratios, Mylasa 330 Lycian coin, with wild boar type 353 Lycian coin. Triskelis type (three-headed) 381 Lycian coin , 391 Lycian coin 393 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY PHRYGIA, MYSIA, BITHYNIA, AND PAPHLAGONIA. CHAPTER I. THE PHRYGIAN NATION. HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF THE PHRYGIANS. THE part the Phrygians played in the Oriental world is not so important as that played by the Hittites, but the modern historian knows next to nothing of the latter, whilst he is acquainted with the house, parentage, and family of speech of the former. The Phrygians appeared later on the scene of history ; they lived in closer proximity with the Greeks, and left inscriptions, few and brief it is true, but written with characters the full values of which are determined. Herodotus and Xanthus of Lydia, who wrote about the fifth century B.C., are agreed in placing the cradle-land of the Phrygians, Mysians, and Bithynians in Thrace, whence they penetrated into Asia Minor across the straits.1 Their testimony 1 Herodotus, vii. 73; Xanthus, p. 5; Fragm. Hist. Grae., C. MULLER'S edit., torn. i. p. 37. Strabo (X. iii. 1 6) sums up the opinion of his predecessors, backed by the rich store of historical information which lay open to him, in the following words : " The Phrygians are a Thracian colony." So PLINY : " Sunt auctores tran- sisse ex Europa Mysos et Brigas et Thynos, a quibus appellantur Mysi, Phryges, Bithyni" (Hist. Natur., v. 41). On the Thracian origin of the Bithynians, see also Thucydides, iv. 75; XENO- PHON, Anabasis, VI. ii. 18 ; iv. i, 2 ; Hell., I. iii. a • III. ii. 2 ; Herodotus, vii. 75, etc. The geographer clearly perceived that if Homer spoke of the Mysians and Thracians in the same line (Iliad, xiii. 3), this was meant to apply to those that had remained in Europe. The mistake of Herodotus (vii. 74), who writes of the Mysians and Lydians as one people, is easily accounted for from the fact that they fought under the same colours in the Persian army, and that long cohabitation on VOL. i. i; HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. was not wholly dependent upon the traditions the immigration might have left among the tribes established in the valleys of the Hermus and along the upper course of the Mseander ; it rested also upon the fact that, many centuries after the separation, names of clans and localities were found east and west of the Hellespont, with scarcely any difference between them, beyond light shades of pronunciation. Nor is this all ; the new country was sometimes called Asiatic Thracia, to distinguish it from Thracia proper. The like comparison was not possible between Phrygians and Arme- nians, albeit a close relationship was affirmed to exist between them. Herodotus, writing of the various nations which composed the army of Xerxes, says, " The Armenians are ' a Phrygian colony/ * equipped like the Phrygians, and when under arms obey a common chief." The little we know of their language would not belie the comparison thus instituted.2 The terms, however, used by the historian imply an hypothesis unacceptable to our better informed judgment, since it is difficult to admit that the populations of Armenia were composed of tribes that had come from the west.3 the western coast of Asia had induced great similarity in their dialects and usages. Differences, no doubt, existed between them, but, though distinctly made out by natives, were not detected by strangers. Any one interested in the subject will find more texts in support of the Thracian origin of the people under discussion in F. LENORMANT, Orig. de I' hist., torn. ii. pp. 366-37 1, and D'ARBOIS DE JUBAINVILLE, Les Premiers habitants de f 'Europe, p. 168 and following. 1 pu-yan/ UTTOLKOI, Herodotus, vii. 73. Cf. EuDOXUS, Stephanus Byzantinus, s.v. 'Apynevioi, and EUSTACE'S Commentary, 694. They went so far as to regard the appellatives Armenians and Phrygians as synonymous terms (CRAMER, Anecdota Graca Oxoniensia, iv. p. 257). JOSEPHUS (Ant. Jud., i. 6) identifies the Phrygians with the descendants of the Togarmah of chapter x. of Genesis. Togarmah is generally taken to denote the Armenians. 2 The relationship between the Phrygian and the Greek tongue was noticed by the ancients (PLATO, Cratylus, p. 410 A). Consult also LASSEN, Zeitschrift der Deutschen, etc., torn. x. p. 369 and following. 8 FR. LENORMANT, Les Origines de Vhistoire, torn. ii. pp. 373-379. Consideration of the earliest Armenian traditions has led him to the conclusion that the Armenians entered the country we now call Armenia from the west, and that when the Assyrians reached it for the first time, the people in possession were not Armenians, but Urartai, Urartu, Alarodians. On this hypothesis the Thracian emigrants who pushed furthest east would be Armenians. DUNCKER (Geschichte der Alterthums, torn. i. P- 383)> whilst admitting the kinship between Phrygians and Armenians, holds the opposite view. He refuses to accept the testimony of numerous ancient texts, in which the migration of the Phrygians from Europe to Asia is stated, and holds it worthless. In his estimation it was just the reverse. If the same names are met with in Phrygia and Thracia, this, he holds, was because the parent tribes of both Phrygians and Thracians, coming from the east, left in Armenia a first colony; a HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF THE PHRYGIANS. If affinity exists between Armenians and Phrygians, it may, perhaps, be otherwise explained. The two nations would have come of a parent stock, a main branch of the Aryan family — a branch which parted in far-off days, and formed two distinct rami- fications. Of these, the one moved north of the Euxine and settled in the south-east of Europe, whence long afterwards they fell back upon Asia Minor ; whilst the other entered the peninsula at the opposite end, through the passes of Caucasus, and the high levels binding it with the tableland of Iran. After centuries of separation, the two groups met again on the river Halys, which rises in Armenia, and whose lower course forms the line of delimi- tation between Cappadocia and Phrygia. Further to discuss the question is outside our purpose. Neither the Thracians nor the Armenians ever had an individual art, so that in no part of this history will their name be recorded. If we have adduced traditions bearing upon the origin and ethnical affinities of the Phrygians, this was because they determine the question of race, and serve to establish their Aryan origin, further demonstrated by words of their language incised on stone hard by Seid al-Ghazi.1 Their idiom might almost be considered a Greek second group, Phrygians, Mysians, Bithynians, established themselves on the north- west of Asia Minor ; then moving still further west, the bulk of the nation crossed the straits, and spread in the vast region that lies between the yEgean and the Danube. This is a theory opposed to almost all ancient texts, the universal belief of antiquity, and Duncker borrowed it from Otto Abel, who has not one good reason to show for it (" Phryges," Real Encyclopedic de Pauly et Makedonien, p. 57). The few authori- ties he cites date from the Lower Empire, e.g. centuries after the events they purpose to relate. 1 None of the scholars who have gone into the question have any doubt on the subject. See first Lassen's dissertation, already referred to (p. 2, note 2), entitled Ueber die Lykischen Inschriften und die alien Sprachen Klein-Asiens. In the second part (Ueber die alten Kleinasiatischen Sprachen uperhaupt) a large share is given to the study of the Phrygian language. The author, whilst giving the expositions of Jablonski, Adelung, Heeren, and De Lagarde, adds many observations of his own. The reader is referred to De Lagarde for a fuller account : Einige Bemerkungen ueber eranische Sprachen ausserkalb Eratfs (Gesamm. Abhand., 8vo, 1866, Leipzig). Chap. iii. pp. 283-291, deals with the glossary of Phrygian words preserved to us in ancient writers ; but unlike Lassen, he makes no attempt to explain the inscrip- tions. Among the many correspondences these papers contain we will single out the following : — Hesychius (s.v.) formally states that Baycuos was the Phrygian name of Zeus. Despite its Greek ending, due to lexicographers, it is not difficult to recognize the bagha, which in old Persian, and Zered as well, signifies deity. The word, with scarcely any modification, occurs in many other Indo-European languages. Bog, in Slavic idioms, has the meaning of deity. HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. dialect; "the Phrygians," it has been said, "are eastern Greeks," a term of comparison fully justified by the close relations which existed between the Thracians and the ancestors of the Hellenes in continental Greece. The witness borne by all antiquity was to the effect that the Greeks were indebted to Thracian tribes established in the valleys of Olympus and Pindus for the religious rites of Dionysus and the Muses. Orpheus was a Thracian bard. We have still to consider the question of date. When did the migration take place which brought these Thracian tribes, so nearly allied to the Greeks, to the very heart of Asia Minor ? To fix the year, or even the century, when the first of these clans crossed the straits is not once to be thought of. Thus stated, the problem would be insoluble ; on the other hand, a highly probable solution may be reached by confining ourselves to determining the position that ought to be assigned to the Phrygians among the many peoples that succeeded each other in Asia Minor — at any rate, those who, thanks to the superiority of their culture, swayed their neighbours and played a leading part, each in turn. Of all the nations who figured on this scene, first in chronological order are the Hittites. The literary documents of Egypt exhibit them, in the days of Thothmes, Seti, and Ramses, as not only supreme masters of Northern Syria, but as wielding enough of authority over the peninsula to have induced innumerable hosts to cross the Taurus in order to fight for the kings of Carchemish and Kadesh against the Pharaohs in the valley of Orontes, and later, in the reign of Menephtah and Ramses III., to have threatened the Egyptian frontiers as well. Is it not likely that, had the Phry- gians then inhabited the peninsula, they must, willingly or unwill- ingly, have been drawn into the general ferment impelling the native populations across the mountains on to Syria ? Now, in the long list of nations banded together under the leadership of the Khetas, including the tribes called somewhat later, by the Theban scribes, " seafaring people," we look in vain for the name of the Phrygians. If contemporary texts containing the recital of these stirring events make no mention of the Phry- gian group, was it not simply because the populations composing it had not yet abandoned their Thracian and Mysian cradle-land, nor crossed the straits, but still dwelt in Europe, where the bulk of the nation preserved their individual life and independence down to the Roman conquest ? This hypothesis, the cumulative know- HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF THE PHRYGIANS. ledge of Greece, the gleanings — for him who knows how to gather them — to be got out of the monuments in which the handiwork of the Phrygians has been recognized, everything in fact, tends to confirm. The caravan routes of the western coast, which led to Smyrna, Ephesus, and Miletus, served as connecting links from the earliest days, between the lonians and the main group of the Phrygian nation — that which has left its name to the portion of the plateau comprised between the middle course of the Halys, the head springs of the Sangarius and the Maeander. We may assume that the traditions relating to Ionia reflected, though faintly, the memories the Phrygians themselves had preserved of their own past ; now, these traditions show no proneness for carrying very far back the migration which brought the Phrygian tribes to the peninsula, since Xanthus of Lydia definitely places the event after the Trojan war.1 As Strabo has already remarked, such an assertion is difficult to reconcile with the testimony of the Homeric poem, in which the Phrygians are represented as the neighbours and allies of the Trojans (XII. viii. 4, XIV. v. 29). The Greeks had no desire to be found to disagree with Homer ; just as, for a long time, whoever handled ancient history was at pains to make his theories fit in with the Bible. Hence it was admitted that the Greeks who followed Agamemnon to Asia, found the Phrygians already at home there and in possession of a vast terri- tory ; nevertheless the migration of the Thraco-Bryges, even for 1 Xanthus, p. 5. Herodotus does not give the date of the migration which brought the Thracians to the peninsula ; if he asserts that the Phrygians had every right to consider themselves as the oldest people in the world, it was on the strength of the experiment made by Psammeticus, which he fully details (ii. 2), but which has no historical value. Its only point of interest resides in the fact that it testifies to that first awaking of a questioning intelligence, which in time was to expand into comparative philology and in our age to take rank among sciences. The two infants reared by Psammeticus in a secluded cottage, wherein no human voice was ever heard, in their first cry imitated the bleating of a goat, said to resemble " bee, bee," and one of the Asiatic Greeks in the king's body-guard forthwith identified the sound with the Phrygian word becos, bread. The anecdote simply proves the readiness of the Greek mind to find a solution, good or bad, to any problem pre- sented to it. For the rest, the Phrygians might be " very ancient " in Herodotus' sense, and yet comparatively of recent date in Asia Minor. Arrian, in a passage preserved by Eustathes (Denys Periegetes, 322), says that the Phrygians passed from Thracia to Asia to escape the hardships consequent on the incursions of the Cimmerians. Inadmissible though this may be from a chronological standpoint, it is none the less important to show that authoritative wiiteis were not disposed to carry back the migration under notice to remote antiquity. HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. writers who start from the above data, was not considered as an event which belongs to fabulous ages, and is lost in the twilight of time. Strabo, as we have seen, confines himself to saying that the tribes in question entered the peninsula before the Trojan war. At no time were the Phrygians, Mysians, and Bithynians, regarded by the ancients as the primitive inhabitants of Asia Minor, autocthones, to use the Greek expression.1 Strictly speaking, the witness borne by instances such as these might be questioned, but what enhances their weight is the fact that they coincide with the views suggested to the historian by monuments discovered within this century by Leake, Stewart, Texier, and Ramsay, on this very soil of Phrygia.2 Crowded in a narrow space, these memorials belong one and all to the region 1 The saying To. NawaKov, in the time of Nannakos, has been advanced in proof of the contrary hypothesis, as shadowing very far-off days ; for old King Nannakos was represented as the Noah of Phrygia, and as having rescued his subjects from the Deluge. The coins of Apamoea Kibotos are witnesses to the popularity of similar legends in a portion of the peninsula during Roman domination ; but earlier writers make no allusion whatever to the deluge in question. The oldest text in which it is mentioned is ascribed to Hermogenes, who wrote in the first, perhaps in the second century of our era (MULLER, Frag. Hist. Grcec., iii. p. 524). The dictum, " to weep over the days of Nannakos," is indeed found in a Iambic poet, one Herodas, Heroudas (BERGK, Poetce lyrici Greed, torn. ii. p. 796) ; but no one knows where he lived, nor is there aught to indicate the meaning he attached to the words To. NavvaKou. When Strabo (XII. viii. 13) tells us that kibotos, casket, coffer, was affixed to Apamoea of Phrygia, he does not in any way connect the surname with a deluge. It may be questioned whether the tradition of the Phrygian flood is in truth very old, and was not an importation of the Jews, who in very early days would have entered the country through Cilicia, and spread in the townships of the central plateau. The Acts of the Apostles show that Hebrew communities were established in Lycaonia in the opening years of our era. NOLDEKE (Untersuchungen zur Kritik des alien Testaments, 8vo, 1886, pp. 154, 155) and FR. LENORMANT (Les Origines, 2nd edit., torn. i. pp. 440, 441) admit that traditions of a local deluge, akin to those which in Greece were connected with Deucalion, may have been current in Phrygia, but they acknowledge at the same time that such myths could not acquire any importance before the second century A.D., and were brought about by infil- tration of Jewish and Christian ideas. This is proved in the name of NOE, NO, engraved on native coins and clearly foreign to Phrygian myths. 2 W. MARTIN LEAKE, Journal of a Tour in Asia Minor, 8vo, London, 1824. His journey was undertaken in 1800, in which year he visited the monument which bears the name of Midas written upon it. He was the first European who saw and made a drawing of the fagade. An abridged account of his travels appeared in Walpole's Memoirs, under the title " Travels in Various Countries of the East." JOHN ROBERT STEWART, A Description of Some Ancient Monuments ivith Inscrip- tions, etc., London, 1842. The letter-press is indifferent, and the plates, taken 'HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF THE PHRYGIANS. 7 where, by common consent, is placed the cradle of the Phrygian race — the scene, at least, upon which the nation unfolded and laid the foundation of a mighty kingdom. Here were many temples, and many votive objects put therein ; the famous chariot, for example, upon which Alexander the Great rested his hand for a while,1 and many sacred springs ; 2 whilst the names of Gordios and Midas linger to this day in Gordion and Midaion, where once these kings were enthroned, but which are now reduced to mere hamlets.3 These names, about which cluster so many fables, are prominent figures in the Phrygian mythic cycle ; one might be inclined to regard them as purely legendary, but for the fact that they appear on the sculptured facades of the Phrygian sepulchres, written in letters not a whit more difficult to read than very old from incorrect sketches, are far from satisfactory. The book is valuable on account of the inscriptions, copied, as a rule, with care. TEXIER, Description de FAsie Mineure, torn. i. pp. 153-162, Plates VI.-LXI. The drawings are among the best brought home by Te"xier ; a few of them only require light corrections to make them quite exact. G. PERROT, Ed. Guillaume et J. Delbet, Explor. Arche. de la Galatie, torn. i. pp. 135-186, 168-170, Plates VII., VIII. The little time the explorers had at their disposal obliged them to confine their observations to the so-called Tomb of Midas and the fortress known as Pishmish Kalessi, but they made very complete and careful tracings. W. M. RAMSAY, Studies in Asia Minor — i. The Rock Necropoles of Phrygia ; 2. Sipylosand Cybele, Plates XVII.-XXII. (Journal of Hell. Studies, torn. iii. pp. 1-68) ; Some Phrygian Monuments, Plates XXVI.-XXIX., pp. 156-262 ; Sepulchral Customs in Ancient Phrygia, Plate XLIV. (Journal, torn. v. pp. 241-262). No one knows more about this district, its history and antiquities, than Professor Ramsay. He has visited it no less than six times from 1881 to the present year; twice in 1881, and once in 1884, 1886, 1888, 1890. Unfortunately he cannot hold a pencil, and the sketches of M. Blunt, his companion in one of these expeditions, leave much to be desired, and, according to Professor Ramsay, are not always reliable. It is to be regretted that Professor Ramsay should not collect and publish in a separate volume the mass of useful matter he has gleaned. 1 ARRIAN, Anabasis, ii. 3 ; PLUTARCH, Alexander, xviii. 2 Midas springs were pointed out to the traveller in several cities of the Phrygian plateau ; one was at Ancyra (Pausanius, I. iv. 5), a town whose foundation was ascribed to Midas, and another in the neighbourhood of Tymbrion and Tyraeon (XENOPHON, Anab., I. ii. 13). 8 Strabo, XII. V. 3 : IIA.770-V 4>puyoiv oi/o/Trjpia Mt'Sov, KCU ITI irpoVepov PopSiou /cat aAAa>v TU/WV, ouS' txyrj (m£ovTa TroXew, aAAa Kaj/zat, /u*p<3 //,€t£ous T£>V aAAcoi', diov eo-rl TO Topotov Kai Pop/Sclavs, TO TOU Kcurropos /?ao-t'A.£iov TOV SawKovSapiW On the probable position of Gordion, see PERROT, Expl. Arche., torn. i. pp. 152-155. Midaion seems to have stood somewhat more to the south, on the old route which ran from Dorylaeum, no\v Aski Sheher, to Pessinus. HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. Greek inscriptions (Fig. i).1 Not only do we no longer find any trace of those Hittite hieroglyphs which still await decipherment, but the alphabet that may be restored from them (Fig. 2) is not derived, as was probably that of Cyprus, from an old system of writ- ing, which seemingly ob- tained throughout Asia Minor before the introduc- tion of Phoenician characters. What is more, it does not contain, as the Lycian, Pam- phylian, and Carian sylla- baries, letters of Punic origin, along with others borrowed from that Asianic alphabet which is found in outline in the literary docu- ments of Cyprus. There is not one letter here which we may not expect to find in Greek inscriptions. The Phrygian alphabet was not derived directly from the Phoenician ; for it does not contain all its letters, whilst it has a few not possessed by the latter ; it was in all likelihood allied to it through one or other of the archaic Greek alphabets, either the Ionian, or rather that called fit /) A b B B 9 r d A A e fcEE v P F x J"5^ i 1 h I K i A 711 fA/v* r^ 71 ^ 0 o O p r r r p p 3 Hi t T T U Y J>h 4> • FIG. 2. — Phrygian alphabet. FR. LENORMANT, under the head- ing ' ' Alphabet, " in Daremberg and Saglio's Dictionary. 1 Excellent copies of most Phrygian inscriptions will be found in the three plates subjoined to Professor Ramsay's interesting memoir, bearing the title, " On the Early Historical Relations between Phrygia and Cappadocia " (Journal of the Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. xv. part i.). The third section of the memoir, " Archaic-Phrygian Inscriptions," is devoted to the Phrygian alpha- bet and its origin, together with a tentative decipherment and translation. HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF THE PHRYGIANS. 9 the "island syllabary." The few short inscriptions of Thera (Santorin) are considered as the oldest in the Greek language, and in them the shapes of the letters still closely resemble Phoenician characters. Nobody has ever believed that these texts could be led back beyond the ninth century B.C. ; 2 indeed, they are referred as a rule to the eighth, and sometimes as low down as the seventh.3 We will stretch a point and accept the earliest date, though in all probability much too old ; even so we shall be obliged to suppose an interval of many years, perhaps a whole century, between the Thera inscriptions and those of the Phrygian necropoles. A century at least was needed to effect the work of elaboration and adaptation, during which the sense of the writing underwent a change ; the value of some of the characters preserved was modified, others were discarded, and not a few were created.4 Finally the Greeks must be allowed time in which to transmit, some way or another, the use and practice of the alphabet to nations who, like the Phrygians, were not their immediate neighbours, but whom many natural obstacles separated from the Ionian and Doric cities of the seaboard. We are thus led back towards the end of the eighth century ; and we reach the same conclusion through a correspondence that furnishes, so to speak, the proof of the operation, by collating and sifting the scanty data to be gleaned in history, intermingled with the brilliant tissue of fables, inseparable from Midas and Phrygia, as presented by the rich and capricious fancy of the Athenian dramatists. Thus Herodotus, in his narrative of the events which caused the throne of Lydia to pass from the Heraclidse to the Mermnadae, has the following : — " The founder of the new dynasty, Gyges, at first met with much resistance on the part of the friends of the old family ; but the Delphic oracle having 1 At first Professor Ramsay thought that the Phrygians had received their alphabet from the Greeks of Sinope (Historical Relations of Phrygia and Cappa- docia, p. 27) ; and later, that they had derived it from the Phoca;ans and Cymseans, with whom intercourse was frequent and continuous (Athenaum, 1884, pp. 864, 865). There is this difficulty, that the Ionian syllabary would seem to have had no F, a letter largely used in all Phrygian inscriptions ; hence Lenormant prefers to ally the Phrygian alphabet to that of the " islands," which would have entered the peninsula via Rhodes, where it was employed. 2 LENORMANT, art. "Alphabet," p. 195. 8 S. REINACH, Traite d'epigraphie grecque, p. 181. 4 AD. KIRCHHOFF, Studien zur Geschichte des Griechischen Alphabets, 3rd edit., 1887, p. 53. io HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. declared in his favour, he was able to bear down all opposition and enmity. As an earnest of his gratitude, he laid before the shrine of the Delphian Apollo rich donations of gold and silver," described at some length, and, adds the historian, " To our knowledge Gyges was the first of the Barbarians who sent gifts to Delphi, the first at any rate since Midas, son of Gordios, king of Phrygia. Indeed, Midas had consecrated his throne, that upon which he sat to administer justice, a throne fully deserving to be seen, and this throne is exhibited on the exact spot where are the crateras of Gyges ; " 1 that is to say, the Thesaurion of Corinth. If, as is generally held, Gyges reigned from 687-653, Midas should come, at the earliest, towards 700 B.C.2 The influence of Greek culture had been unfelt before that date in the peninsula ; and nothing was known of the sanctuary that played so important a part in the Hellenic world, before the unfolding of philosophy and scepticism — a part akin to that which the papacy filled in Europe during the Middle Ages. The greatest develop- ment, physical and spiritual, ever attained by Ionia was between the latter half of the eighth and the beginning of the seventh century B.C. She had already produced that marvel, the epic poem, and, with Archilochus, she created lyric poetry. In the domain of art she was beginning to chisel Parian marble ; her architects were striving to bring out of the complex and undefined shapes of the Asiatic decoration they beheld around them, the elements of their column and entablature ; they even sought proportions and lines, the felicitous selection of which was to make the fortune of that noble and attractive type with which her name will ever be linked. To this splendid display of inventive genius and activity corresponds a bold movement of expansion ; the cities of Ionia turned betimes their vessels towards the main, and multiplied their counting-houses from the mouth of the Phasus and the Borysthenes to those of the Nile; when Miletus, along with Tyre, becomes the great emporium of the eastern basin of the Mediterranean. The Dorian cities of Caria, the yEolian townships of Mysia, though not with equal dash, join in 1 Herodotus, i. 14. 2 The dates 687-653 are those given by Gelzer, after Assyrian documents, and should be read in his admirable work bearing the title Des Zeitalter des Gyges (Rheinisches Museum, N. F., torn. xxx. pp. 231-268, and torn. xxxv. pp. 514-528). The first portion of the paper deals with the chronology and dynasty of the Merm- nadse. The work has lately appeared. HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF THE PHRYGIANS. 1 1 these manifold pursuits, and share the ebb and flow which attends on commercial enterprise. Built upon the shore, where its sinuous windings form natural havens, the vast majority of these centres owned but a narrow strip of land outside their walls ; their population was not sufficiently large to render extension far inland advisable, for they would have run up against warlike tribes, the Carians and the Lydians, the Phrygians and the Mysians. The situation these populations held on the heights which dominate, whilst separating one from the other, the lower valleys of the Cayster, the Hermus, the Caicos, and the Mseander, gave them the control of the fertile plains washed by these streams in their lower course. The main outlet and general outflow of the inhabitants of these maritime cities was towards the sea ; but most of the commodities for home consumption, as well as merchandise for exchange, were gotten from their inland borders, and further still. In order, therefore, to procure the necessaries of life and foster their trade, they were obliged to have friends, or, as we should now say, agents, in such districts as were closed to them, and where they could not settle with any chance of success. Thus commercial and personal intercourse led the way to relations of a friendly and social nature, between the chiefs of the great Achaean houses and those of the less barbarous tribes of the tableland ; similar connections were sometimes drawn closer by matrimonial alliances. During the seventh and the sixth centuries the kings of Lydia regularly chose their consorts from, or gave their daughters to, the patrician families of Ionia. In the preceding age, ere the Lydian empire had become supreme and interposed between the townships of the seaboard and the populations located on the central plateau, the Codrids and the Neleidae, those presiding families of the Greek colonies, had entered into similar relations with the sovereigns of the state that subsequently destroyed and absorbed Lydia. In the seventh century, a king of Phrygia espoused the daughter of Agamemnon, king of Cymae, celebrated for her beauty and wisdom.1 A certain Phrygios,2 a prominent 1 Heraclides of Pontus, -n-epl TroXirtiwv (Frag. Hist. Grcec., MULLER, torn. ii. p. 216). Pollux (ix. p. 83) calls this same woman Demodike. She must have been the wife of the last king Midas, for to her was ascribed the introduction of coined money into Cymoe, Cumae. 3 PLUTARCH, Fern. Virt., 16. 12 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. personage among the nobles of Miletus, who claimed descent from Neleus, is the hero of a story which Plutarch borrowed from some old historian ; now, the name in itself is proof sufficient of the friendly intercourse which existed between the sovereigns of Phrygia and the Ionian princes, whose ancestors play so con- spicuous a part in the Homeric poem.1 If the names of Gordios and Midas do not appear in Homer, that may have been due to one of two causes : either he had no opportunity for introducing them, or, what is more likely, it was because those princes did not begin to reign until after the recension of the Iliad by the Rhapsodists ; than which no better reason could be invoked in support of the comparatively recent culture of Phrygia. Had the epic singers been contemporaries of those monarchs, some passing allusion would be found in one or other of the poems to that fabulous wealth which the fervid imagination of the Greeks ascribed to the kings of Phrygia ; Midas, that Midas who turned everything he touched into gold, would seem to have been for the lonians, before Croesus, the type of the monarch who could draw at will from inexhaustible treasures. The Iliad, it is true, makes repeated mention of the Phrygians as the allies of Priam ; it places some of the tribes in Ascania, a region subsequently known as Hellespontic Phrygia;2 it knows of others established in the interior of the continent on the banks of the Sangarius, who wage perpetual war with the Amazons, that is to say, with an enemy from beyond the Halys.3 All are agriculturists, and 1 It is Curtius' remark, Hist, of Greece, torn. i. p. 291. 2 Iliad, ii. 860. The name of Ascania disappeared as a local designation ; in the days of Strabo, however, the basin subsequently known as " Lake of Nicasa " still went by the name of Ascanian lake. One of Priam's numerous offspring, and the son of ^neas, are called Ascanius. Ascanius is a river of the Troad; the small group of islets fronting the latter are the Ascanian islands ; the name is also found in a harbour situated on the Troadian and Lydian border. Ascania, accord- ing to Xanthus, was a European district, whence the Phrygians passed to Asia (Strabo, XIV. v. 29). Some hold that to have left so many traces in literary records, the name must have represented at one time the whole Phrygian people, or at least one of its tribes ; an hypothesis confirmed by the fact that in the list of the sons of Corner (Gen. x. 3), Ashkenaz, whom Lenormant would recognize as the father of the Phrygians, is placed side by side with Togarmah, the ancestor of the Armenians. The reader will find the reasons that invest the hypothesis with a great degree of probability in FR. LENORMANT, Les Origines de Vhistoire, torn. ii. PP- 388-395. [According to Lenormant and other authorities, Ascanios, Ascaniaus, is but the Greek rendering of Ashkenaz. — TRS.] 3 Iliad, lii. 184-189; xvi. 718. HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF THE PHRYGIANS. more renowned for the breed of their horses and skill in breaking them than for other earthly goods.1 Moreover, in the Iliad, as also in a later poem, the Hymn to Aphrodite? the chiefs who head the Phrygian forces are Phorcys and Ascanios, Asios and Hymas, Otrseus and Mygdon — names to which there is no need to ascribe an historical value ; in the " strongly walled cities of the Phrygians," Gordios and Midas reign not.3 The vast majority of critics hold that the Iliad, as we possess it, has not materially changed since the ninth century B.C. Survey of the Epos and consideration of other intelligence bring us round to the conclusion reached a few pages back, namely, that if the Phrygians were already settled in the heart of the peninsula before the time of Homer, it was not until the year 800, or thereabouts, that they succeeded in laying the foundations of that state, which was to be the most influential in Western Asia down to the day when Lydia, under the leadership of Gyges and Ardys, entered upon the scene.4 Tradition told of Gordios, a tiller of the soil, as the founder of the dynasty ; he was succeeded by his son Midas, and from that time the two names would seem to have alternated in the royal family ; they were, perhaps, those of eponymous heroes of the Phrygian tribes, fabulous ancestors worshipped as gods.5 Ex- amination of the rare texts that bear upon this history permits us to make out, with more or less certainty, three Midases and four Gordioses.6 The number of these princes is unimportant ; the one 1 Iliad, x. 431. 2 Hymns, iii. 111,112. 8 Ibid., 112. 4 This result, to which several routes have led, is in perfect agreement with the chronology of Eusebius. He sets the beginning of Midas' reign in the fourth year of the tenth Olympiad, e.g. in 737 B.C. (ANGELO MAI, C/iron., p. 321). Eusebius had, it is true, put another Midas 552 years earlier, and made him coeval with Pelops (p. 291) and the foundation of Troy. All that can be urged is that the first data belong to the fabulous period of his tables, and have no historical value ; whereas the second are comprised within the truly historical part of his work, when the materials he had to hand were of a very different character. The same observa- tion applies to the date he assigns for the suicide of the last Midas (p. 324), which he places in the fifty-ninth Olympiad, clearly too late. 5 The fact is proved for Midas, at least, who in the west of the peninsula was confounded with one of those gods whose worship prevailed down to the last days of paganism (Hesychius, s.v. Mt'Sas 6(6<>). The representations of Midas on a certain number of painted vases are only to be explained by a similar confusion of the two names. See PANOFKA, Midas auf Bild-werken (Archce. Zeitung, iii. p. 92, 1845). B See article entitled " Midas," Real-Encydop. Pauly. 14 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. thing to be borne in mind, however, is that the Phrygian empire, after a prosperous existence of a hundred and fifty years, was ravaged (circa 660 B.C.), along with that of Lydia, by Cimmerian hordes. The king Midas of that day, unable to endure defeat, put an end to his existence by drinking the blood of a bull.1 It was but a momentary calamity, which disappeared with the with- drawal of the Cimmerians ; for Herodotus tells us that in the reign of Crcesus, the Phrygian king of that day styled himself son of Gordios and grandson of Midas.2 The effect of the late invasion, however, had been to weaken and break up the country ; so that its inhabitants offered little resistance to the Lydians when these, a few years afterwards, under the command of Alyattes and Crcesus, entered their territory, which they occupied as far as the banks of the Halys.3 Consequently, a space of two hundred or two hundred and fifty years may confidently be allowed as the duration of that Phrygian empire, which we credit with the monuments still extant around the springs that feed the western branch of the Sangarius. Strictly speaking, that state has no history, for its span of life was passed too far away from the coast. Until the day when the Greeks entered into intercourse or conflict with Lydia, nothing was known on the coast of the events that were taking place on the plateau. The scanty data we possess as to this empire relate to events which may be dated with certainty within a few years ; landmarks, such as the reign of Gyges, the Cimmerian incursions, the wars of Alyattes and Croesus. Gordios, Midas, together with the monuments situate on the western rim of the great plateau bearing their names, belong, then, to what may be termed the historical period. We are better off in regard to another kingdom, which likewise left recollections of its power and wealth in the mind of the Greeks ; we allude to a state skirting the yEgean, whose capital, fastnesses, and sanctuaries rose on the flanks and within the gorges of Sipylus, between the valley of the Hermus 1 Strabo, I. iii. 21. Allusion to this suicide will be found in PLUTARCH, Flaminitis, 20. 2 Herodotus, i. 35, 45. 3 Herodotus (i. 28) ascribes to Croesus the subjugation of the peninsula to the banks of the Halys ; but Alyattes must have commenced it, since a little further (i. 74) he shows him carrying on a war of six years' duration against Cyaxares. The valley of the Halys and the central plateau were doubtless the scene of this struggle ; there is nothing to indicate that the Medes of that date went near the Mediterranean. HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF THE PHRYGIANS. 15 and the Smyrnian Gulf. As time rolled on, these heights were abandoned for the level plain below ; populous cities, as Magnesia, were built in the plain, or on the shore, as Smyrna. But Sipylus, even when deserted, did not lose its hold on the regard of the natives ; it continued to be venerated as the favourite abode of the great Asiatic goddess, Rhea or Cybele. The monuments, left by generations that had been the first to cast the seeds of civiliza- tion on a soil from which Greek genius was to reap such splendid fruit,1 were visited with pious curiosity ; but they elicited no ques- tioning as to their chronological order, and whether due to one or several epochs. The traditions relating to this commonwealth had assumed a mythic form ; they led back to that fabulous age when gods descended upon earth and lived in intimacy with men ; they clustered about two single names, those of Tantalus and Niobe, whose transcendent magnificence and insolent prosperity had roused the wrath of jealous deities, and caused their headlong fall. Then, too, had followed catastrophes as sudden as they were strange ; earthquakes had shaken the mountain to its very base ; yawning chasms had engulfed the royal city of Tantalis, with her prince and inhabitants, and amidst the crash of falling boulders streams had gushed forth from the abyss, and where once had been the proud city, stood now a lake, in whose waters at low tide the ruinous mass of palace and dwellings could be descried.2 The legend of Niobe, daughter of Tantalus, whose numerous and happy offspring are all struck down, may be taken as foreshadow- ing the ruin of a brave and proud community, suddenly blotted out of the roll of nations by the wholesale massacre of its male adults. Many are the variations of the myth of Tantalus and Niobe ;3 1 This is implied by Pausanias, who returns again and again to the curiosities of Sipylus, often in the following words : " As I myself saw on Sipylus." 2 The Odyssey (xi. 582) puts Tantalus in Tartarus, but does not say to what mis- demeanour he owed the famous punishment that goes by his name. PINDAR (Olymp., i. 54-64) indicates as his crime the theft of nectar and ambrosia. On the destruction of Tantalis or Sipylus by an earthquake, see ARISTOTLE, Meteorologica, ii. 8; Strabo, I. iii. 17; XII. viii. 18 ; PLINY, ff. N., edit. Littre', ii. 93, v. 31. Pausanias writes that in his day the ruins of Tantalis were still to be seen in the depths of the waters (VII. xxiv. 13). 8 These various traditions have been collected in book form, and discussed by K. B. STARK, Niobe und die Niobiden in ihrer literarischcn, kunstlcrischcn mid mythologischer Bedciitung, 464 pp. and 20 plates, 8vo, Leipzig, 1863. 1 6 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. the form given here is that which has found general popularity and acceptance. Among the various readings that have come down to us, one alone indicates, implicitly at least, the epoch to which the Greeks carried back the reign of Tantalus, and the dominion he exercised over the country that stretches from Sipylus to Ida ; it represents Ilus, Ilos, Ilium, a prince of the Dardani, the founder of Ilium and grandfather of Priam, as having overthrown Tantalus and destroyed his empire.1 To accept as sober fact the story according to which Ilus, to avenge his brother Ganymedes, had led a great force against Tantalus, is out of the question ; but the tale suffices to prove that a far more remote antiquity was ascribed to Tantalus and his kingdom on Sipylus, than to the Phrygian empire of the Sangarius. For the chroniclers, to put an event generations before the Trojan war, was equivalent to relegating it away to that shadowy past, ere men had taken count of time. If such traditions stood by themselves, they might be deemed of little moment ; but it so happens that they are in perfect agreement with the monuments. Three of these rock-sculp- tures found in the Sipylus region have already been figured and described in the fourth volume of our history ; namely, the two bas-reliefs at Karabel, and that colossal statue of Cybele, which for a long time was taken as a Niobe.2 These works, it will be remembered, were assigned by us to the oldest civilization of Asia Minor, that which we designated as Hittite or Syro-Cappa- docian ; we based our assumption on similarity of type, style of workmanship, and graphic signs, which distinguish both these and the monuments of the basins of Orontes and the Halys.3 On the other hand, nowhere in this district has the slightest trace been found of an alphabet derived from the Phoenician, — that which the Phrygians of the valleys of the Rhyndacus and the Sangarius borrowed from the Greeks when they wished to write their language ; equally non-existent are those principles of ornament seen on the Midas monument, and the surrounding sepulchral facades. Had we no historical witness the mere sight of these monuments would enable any one of average intelligence to assign priority of date to the city and the culture of the population dominated by the rounded summits of Sipylus. To be noted 1 Diodorus, iv. 74. 2 Hist, of Art, torn. iv. Figs. 361, 363, 365. 3 For the signs in question, see Ibid., Figs. 364, 366. HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF THE PHRYGIANS. 17 also on these denuded slopes, will be other remains of a far-off past, consisting of bas-reliefs, structural and rock-cut buildings ; which, though less striking and characteristic than the two pseudo- Sesostris and the Cybele, have, in our estimation, all the marks of high antiquity. The difficulty is to find out to what branch of the human family belonged the race that has left so many marks of its existence and activity on the flanks of Sipylus. Is it necessary to attribute everything to those conquerors from the East, whose image we think we recognize graven on the rocky sides of the pass they carried with their arms ? We trow not. The brave soldiers who t ; measured their strength with Egypt, not always to the advantage of the latter, may, at the time when the superiority of their mili- tary tactics and armament ensured their undisputed supremacy in the western portion of the peninsula, have carried the point of one of their columns as far as here. But it is difficult to imagine that they remained long so far away from the Taurus, both slopes of which they occupied. Now, taken altogether, the monuments met with on Sipylus seem to testify to the long sojourn of a settled population. Near Magnesia, around the statue of Cybele, are altars and niches which in their turn testify to the homage paid to the gigantic idol from the day of its birth, and. for centuries afterwards. On the lower hills, turned towards Smyrna, are stair- ways and galleries, redoubts, places of worship, and tombs, all of which are partly built, partly hewn in the rock. One and all tell, as clearly as possible, that a people lived for many generations entrenched on these heights, but that when the Greek cities were founded on the adjacent shores, this same people had already lost whatever importance they had previously possessed ; since epic and lyric poetry are alike silent about them, save their having once been mighty enough and rich enough to kindle the jealousy of the gods. The curiosity of the historian, which should not be so readily satisfied, but would seek to penetrate further, will have little more than a choice between two hypotheses. That of a Hittite colony established at some time on Sipylus is in itself very improbable ; for no indication, however slight, can be produced in its favour either from history or legend. On the other hand, if already in the day of Herodotus the name of Phrygia Major, Great Phrygia, was confined to the elevated region stretching between the Halys and the Sangarius, the Rhyndacus and the VOL. i. c 1 8 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. Mseander, a distinct impression was retained of a far-off age when the Phrygians had spread high up around the Mysian Olympus, the Idsean summits, and Sipylus. In the time of Strabo the name of Phrygia Parva, Small Phrygia, or Phrygia Epicteta, was still generally applied to the country ruled by these mountains.1 It was an indefinite name, and answered to no existing division, yet is of great interest to us as a reminiscence of the old Phrygian empire, in that it serves to prove its extension to the Bay of Smyrna. We have a further proof of this in a passage of Strabo, where he expounds the difficulties that beset the historian who should try to fix the boundaries of the Phrygians and the Mysians. " This," he goes on to say, " is proved by the name of Phrygia, given by the ancients to the region of Sipylus itself. . . . They also called Phrygian Pelops, Tantalus, and Niobe."2 If, as universally held by the ancients, the Phrygians came from Europe across the straits to Asia Minor, it is natural to suppose that, once on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus and the Helles- pont, they tarried a while ere they ventured on to the thickly wooded heights of the interior ; they would begin to spread along the comparatively clear coast, especially towards the south. In continental Greece, too, at the same time and in the same fashion, other Thracian tribes, following the chain of Pindus, reached Bceotia and Attica. The Phrygians would thus have pushed on to the rich plains which we know as Lydia, as far as, yet not further than, the Bay of Smyrna ; since the southernmost territory specified by Strabo as within the Phrygia of the coast, which he dis- tinguishes from Mediterranean Phrygia, is the district of Sipylus.3 The more advanced post occupied this fort-like mass, which 1 Strabo distinguishes (XII. viii. i) "what is called Phrygia Major, the ancient kingdom of Midas, part of which has been occupied by the Galatians," from " Phrygia Parva, or, as it also is called to-day, Phrygia Epicteta, which extends along the Hellespont and Mount Olympus." The term eVt/cr^Tos is of recent origin, and only dates from the kings of Pergamos; it designated the province these " acquired," in reality wrested, from the kings of Bithynia (Strabo, XII. iv. 3). 2 Ibid., viii. 2. So Athenseus, who, together with the whole antiquity from Homer, regarded Pelops as the son of Tantalus, states that within Peloponnesus are the tombs : TWV pera IIcXoTros &pvyu>v (xiv. p. 626). Sophocles (Antigone, 825) calls Niobe : TOV &pvyiav £evav TavTaA.ou. 8 Nevertheless, mention is made of Mydonians as inhabiting the neighbourhood of Miletus (^ELIAN., Hist. Var., viii. 5) ; of Bebryces, who, together with the Phocseans, would seem to have been engaged in holding in check the surrounding barbarous tribes (POLY^ENUS, Strateg., viii. 37). HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF THE PHRYGIANS. 19 commanded at once the fertile valleys of the Hermus and the tranquil waters of a bay never stirred by the breeze. The advantages of such a situation as this ensured prosperity to the new kingdom, which was further increased by the winning of rich ores from rocks upheaved and fashioned by Plutonic agency. The wealth of Tantalus, rumour said, had been due to the mines of Sipylus.1 The art of mining and working metals was not learnt in Asia by the Phrygians ; when they quitted Europe they were still a barbarous race. Those tribes that were left in the parent home of Thracia, around the Pangseus and Haemus, were little better than savages at the time of the Roman conquest. If matters took a different turn with the children of that family who had settled in the Anatolian peninsula, it was because they were from the outset brought in contact with a more advanced people, one with the command, in part at least, of the processes that had long been the boast of the Egyptian and Chaldaean civilizations. These intermediate initiators and teachers were no other than the Hittites; those brave soldiers and ready inventors who had carried their arms and the use of their writing from the banks of the Euphrates and Orontes to those of the ^Egean, from Carchemish and Hamath, even to the regions where later rose Smyrna and Sardis, Ephesus and Miletus. On many a point of the vast tract comprised within these boundaries, we have found unmistakable traces of the military power and creative energy of the Hittites; in Cappadocia and Lycaonia, for instance, are notable remains often of gigantic size, and in Phrygia and Lydia isolated figures carved on the native rock, with short inscriptions as yet undeciphered ; everywhere, in short, east and west of the peninsula, we met with small objects, trinkets and seals, on which appear forms and types derived from Northern Syria. Instances such as these prove that Syro-Cappadocian culture, after having opened up the western highways with might and main, used these strategic routes for the purposes of trade, and guarded them by means of fortified posts, as we have seen at Ghiaour Kalessi.2 One of these roads, taken by caravans, led to 1 CALLISTHENES, Fragm., 29 (Scriptores rerum Alexandri, collected by Ch. Miiller, and placed at the end of Arrian's work, collect. Didot). Hence the Greek dictum, TavroAou raAavra (Thesaurus, S.v. ravrXi^cu). 2 Hist, of Art, torn. iv. vol. ii. p. 714, Figs. 351, 352. 2O HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. the Karabel Pass, where it divided : one running down to the furthest point of the bay, the other debouching into the marvellous plain of Hermus. If we have correctly made out the stages and guessed the terminus of this highway, would there not be ground for believing that, at the point where it reached the sea, a mart of exchange, both for merchandise and ideas, would almost imme- diately have sprung up; and should not this be the explanation of that precocious prosperity with which legend endowed the Tantalis of Sipylus, the proud city overthrown by Zeus, as else- where Sodom and Gomorrha were destroyed by Jahveh ? On this hypothesis Tantalus and his subjects would be Phrygians, as said tradition, but Phrygians formed in the school of those eastern conquerors whom we have tentatively called, to give them a name, Syro-Cappadocians or Hittites. Are commercial relations enough to explain borrowings and progress, or did the Hittites in their victorious march penetrate as far as these shores which un- locked the sea to them ? Did they occupy for a time Sipylus, plant a colony there, a kind of outpost, whose population in due time intermingled with such of the Thracian immigrants as had been brought to these same slopes and ravines ? Neither myth nor history will answer the question. The monuments of this district, however, exhibit features other than those seen on the examples of the upper valley of the Sangarius ; they look older, and are directly derived from the art which created the sculptures of Pteria and Lycaonia. But for the enormous distance intervening between Sipylus and the Amanus and Laurus range, one would be tempted to attribute them to the Hittites. This we have done for the twin figures at Karabel and the Cybele near Magnesia ; but when the reader, along with us, climbs the rugged sides of Sipylus, and discovers other very archaic works, will not the question arise as to whether all these, even to the Pseudo- Sesostris and the false Niobe, should not be assigned to the Phrygians of Sipylus rather than to transitory invaders ? To these may belong figures whose outward signs and the place they occupy would lend themselves to such explanations ; but there are difficulties not easily overcome in ascribing to hands other than those of the permanent inhabitants themselves, a work which, as the Cybele, Buyuk Souret, clearly shows long and patient labour. Our reason for including the Buyuk Souret with the Hittite series was (i) to make it as complete as possible, (2) HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF THE PHRYGIANS. 21 because of the inscription accompanying it. It would have been wiser, perhaps, not to have detached it from the monuments that constitute the Sipylus unit, a group that would represent the effort and legacy of the first civilized state ever planted on the western coast of Asia Minor, within easy reach of the Archipelago, having the Hellenic peninsula right opposite. Of course, the Phrygians of Sipylus were not the first inhabitants of the line of coast that faces towards Europe. Before the influence of Eastern arts and industries had travelled thither, the physical and climatic conditions of this favoured land had attracted around the springs and mouths of rivers populations made up of pretty closely packed settlements. To inquire their name and origin would be vain, since history, nay, not even tradition itself, could travel so far back. The existence of these truly " prehistoric " populations, in the fullest sense the term implies, has been revealed to the world by the recent excavations of Dr. Schliemann in the Troad. From the bottom of the trenches opened in the sides of the hill at Hissarlik, was brought out a "stone civilization," if the expression may be allowed. Now, among the implements of every description that lay heaped together in the lower strata, dropped there by each generation in turn, no metal has been found ; at least so rarely, that where its presence has been detected, we may reasonably set it down to accident — either some mistake in making up the journal from the notes, which may have got confused, or the falling in of a portion of an upper layer or crust, causing the regular order to be disturbed, so that articles that properly belonged to recent, or at least much later times, would be found in the lowest layers amongst the primitive ones. As to celestial types and ornamental forms of Egyptian and Chaldsean origin to be found almost everywhere, both on the coasts and the Mediterranean islands (whither they were carried by the Phoenicians), or distributed in the interior of Syria and Asia Minor by other intermediaries, they are non-existent at Hissarlik; at any rate, in pieces of genuine antiquity, such as unquestionably belong to the lowest strata. Here art and industry, though rude, betray independent effort ; an effort akin to that which inspired the populations of the /Egean coast in their first struggles to emerge from barbarism, ere a double set of influences borne by land and sea put them in continuous touch with the civilized nations of Further Asia. A careful 22 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. survey of the industrial products of the primitive art under notice, will form a natural introduction to the history of Hellenic art; we will call at Hissarlik on our way to Mycense and Tyrins. In the race we promise to run, we are bound to complete our study of the productions of Oriental art ere making that turn of the road where lies Greece. That thousands of years divide the civilizations of Egypt and Chaldsea from those that unfolded later on the European side of the Mediterranean, is a fact we have tried to make clear ; going back as far as possible to that mysterious past, whose far-reaching depths were unsuspected till yesterday. Thanks to recent researches and discoveries, the main results of which have appeared in our history, we are now able to measure the importance and originality of the work accomplished by the first civilized nations of the valleys of the Nile and of Europe. The course of our studies took us to the capitals where these nations had reared monuments both imposing and numerous ; to Memphis and Thebes, Babylon and Nineveh, Tyre and Sidon. We saw by what means the methods invented by these active and influential centres were disseminated in an easterly direction. It remains to trace the effect of such teachings and example upon peoples who, although they never played a leading part in the world, contributed none the less, in a greater or less degree, to work up the materials which Asia transmitted to Europe. Hence the fitness of taking up each in turn, Phrygians, Lydians, and Lycians. These people lost their independence towards the beginning of the seventh century B.C., when they became subject to the Achae- menidse. The result of this conquest was to bring democratic Greece into contact with the greatest Asiatic monarchy the world had yet seen, whose art, the youngest and the last derived from Oriental tradition, will form the larger portion of this volume. It is an art which, in the building and decoration of its monuments, could dispose of almost boundless resources ; it will, therefore, detain us longer than those provincial and secondary arts, whose claim to our early attention lies in the fact that they stand first in chronological order. In obedience to this principle we shall begin with the Phrygians, whose mythical cycle, often referred to by us, shows them as a compact political body in the days of Homer, to whom the name even of the Lydians is unknown. Our survey of Phrygian art will divide itself in two sections — one devoted to the monuments CUSTOMS AND RELIGION OF THE PHRYGIANS. 23 of Sipylus or Phrygia Parva, which, as a kingdom, had already ceased to exist when epic poetry had its birth ; the other to those of that state of Phrygia Major, the last rulers of which belong to historical times. In this second group will be included a certain number of tombs recently discovered in Paphlagonia ; here and there, north and south of the chain of Olympus, the arrangements in sepulchral architecture are precisely similar, at least in those tombs that are prior to the introduction of the Greek language and Greek arts into the centre and north of the peninsula. Were the Paphlagonians sprung, like the Phrygians, from a Thracian stock ? We know not, save that the resemblance between the two sets of monuments seems to justify the comparison we have made. CUSTOMS AND RELIGION OF THE PHRYGIANS. The historian who desires to form a fair idea of the general culture, religious creed, and public worship of Phrygia is obliged in a great measure to rely upon authorities of comparatively recent date, unconnected, it would seem, with the period within which we wish to confine ourselves for the present. Such a course is justified by the oft-repeated statement, which will bear being mentioned afresh, namely, that Hellenic culture did not penetrate to, or take permanent hold on, the interior of the peninsula until the days of Alexander and his successors. And though its diffusion was universal and lasting, it proved ineffectual in stamping out the religion, legends, and usages, hallowed by a past so remote as to be counted by thousands of years. Hence it comes to pass that even the Greeks, in matters pertaining to religion and art, were actually influenced by the order of things they beheld around them. Under Roman rule, the temples of Pontus, Cappadocia, and Phrygia, of Bela, Comana, and Pessinus, to name only the best known, along with the lands attached to them, preserve a whole host of eunuch-priests and consecrated temple-slaves of either sex. The yearly festivals, which were wont on stated days to attract thousands of pilgrims to worship at the shrines, are as fully attended as of old. No need is there to rejuvenate or bring them up to date ; their title of nobility and claim to the reverence of the multitude reside in their antiquity. Then, too, in many a sepulchre of old Phrygia, dating from the first and the second century of the 24 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. Christian era, imprecatory formulas continue to be incised, to scare away the impious who should presume to disturb the sacred repose of the dead.1 If the social conditions of the people in possession of the coast line of the ^gean were scarcely disturbed by the Macedonian and the Roman conquests, there is every reason to suppose that the old order of things was maintained during the Persian rule, which lasted two hundred and fifty years. Under the name of satraps, the heads of local dynasties preserved, almost everywhere, their hereditary power, and priests continued to preside over their theocratic principalities. Despite the apparent disappearance of ancient divisions, the various races who occupied the tableland were allowed to live their own life, subject to paying a small tribute and furnishing a certain number of soldiers in time of war. No government was ever found to govern less than that of the Achae- menidae, nor was its policy ever directed to control the liberty of action of its subjects, who were left to work out their weal or woe unfettered. When we come to examine the monumental fa9ades which are so plentiful in the cemeteries of Eastern Phrygia, we shall find that they continued almost unchanged during the space of about five hundred years, beginning from the eighth century B.C., down to, perhaps, the Seleucidae. As time rolled on, Greek influence becomes perceptible in the pro- portion of columns, the shape of capitals, the character and make of entablatures, without prejudice, however, to the main dispositions or decorative themes, which are precisely the same as in the age of Gordios and Midas. It is a trite remark that religious concep- tions, inasmuch as they are implanted in the inmost soul, offer a far greater persistency than artistic forms, no matter how beautiful or ancient, easily imitated, too, or borrowed. In Phrygia it took a very long time to bring about modification and change in existing forms, which were with difficulty replaced by fresh ones. If this 1 The real significance of these formulas was first understood by Moritz Schmidt (Neue Lykische Studien, pp. 132-136). See also Professor Ramsay's recent disser- tation, entitled " Phrygian Inscriptions of the Roman period " (Zeitschrift fur vergleichende Sprachforschung, N.S., torn. viii. pp. 381-400). The formulas in question are more particularly found east and north of Phrygia ; that is to say, far from the boundaries of Ionia and the district subsequently called the kingdom of Pergamus. These territories were, from the outset, marts of exchange, and, so to speak, the focus of the electric contact between Phrygians and lonians ; hence they became closely united together, nay, blended into one community, Greek in speech. CUSTOMS AND RELIGION OF THE PHRYGIANS. 25 be so, how much more sedulously must observances relating to the public worship of deities have been watched over and preserved as relics bound up with the instincts and early awakening of these primitive societies ? Contact with Greek polytheism did not materially affect the religions of Asia Minor or Syria, which kept their ground far more energetically, and were more successful in repelling alien influences, than those of the Italians and Gauls. This they owed to their intense spirituality ; for, although they were acted upon by the new religion, they reacted and gave back in their turn quite as much, if not more, than they had received. Consequently, in trying to unravel the inner meaning and out- ward form of these cults, we may unhesitatingly draw from authorities acknowledged as such, Herodotus, Strabo, Diodorus, etc., as well as from later ones, who, when Greece ceased to create in the domain of art and poetry, set themselves to write the histories of the Hellenic race and of the various peoples who had preceded them in the country. In so doing they made use of the accumulated data which lay open to them at Pergamus and Alexandria. The Phrygians were distinguished from their neighbours of Lydia, and the Greeks on the coast, in that they were essentially a nation of shepherds and husbandmen. From the earliest time they partially cleared out the forest-clad mountains, to feed numerous flocks and herds, which constituted one main source of the revenue of native princes, as it does to the present day. This was forcibly borne home to us as we sat at the door of our tents and watched the kine and yearlings roaming under majestic pines, or as we journeyed along the banks of the Sangarius, around its copious springs, which give the river from the outset a considerable volume of water, and render it unfordable save at rare intervals. If in summer herbage is scanty on the plateau, an abundance of grass is always to be had on the first slopes of the hills. Homer extols the fiery steeds foremost in the chase led by the Phrygians (Iliad, ii. 862 ; iii. 185 ; x. 431 ; Hymns, iii. 138). Close at hand, Pan engaged Phcebus in unequal contest, when public opinion, as was to be expected, declared in favour of the greater god, and honest but imprudent Midas withdrew with ass's ears (Ovio, Metam., lib. xi., iv.1). However this may be, the same god 1 The reference given is according to English arrangement, and not that which appears in the text. — TRS. 26 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. reappears later under the name of Atys, the chief deity of the Phrygians, whom tradition depicted as a fair young shepherd of whom Cybele was enamoured.1 Other instances might be added in proof of the rural bent of the Phrygians ; their readiness in turn- ing to account the natural fertility of the soil, which in many places is a soft tufaceous rock, easily disintegrated, and of marvellous productiveness. With them all that related to husbandry was deemed sacred : the husbandman, the ploughshare, and the patient oxen yoked thereto were under Divine protection. Death was the sentence passed upon the evildoer who misappropriated implements of husbandry or killed a plough ox.2 The gold-plated chariot of their great ancestor, Gordios, had not been a war-chariot, but a lumber- ing cart which served him to garner his crops ; 3 the plating had been of later days, so as to render it a fit offering to Olympus. Had not he commanded his winged messenger, the eagle, to alight on the yoke of Gordios's team, as an earnest of his future power ? This was no other than the famous chariot placed in the Thesaurion at Corinth by his son Midas, and doubtless very similar to the clumsy ardbas of the present day.4 Then, too, the fabulous wealth of Midas had been foreshadowed in grains of wheat, carried by ants to his infant lips ; 6 whilst his gigantic son, Lityerses, a king among reapers, gloried in the stoutness of his sinews, and overthrew every- body whom he challenged to single combat. His name it was which resounded in song in the lowlands at harvest time, or around the threshing-floor.6 Others, again, were connected with the vintage, where Midas appears as filling the fountain, out of which Silenus is wont to quench his thirst, with the juice of the grape, so that the unsociable old man may be secured whilst overpowered by the unusual libation.7 Allusions to the potency of wine, its cheering effect on the hearts 1 In a poem of Atys, partly reproduced by Origen (MILLER, Philosophumena, p. 119), he is called cuTroAos, goat-herd; whilst Theocritus (xx. 40) calls him ySouxoAos, ox-driver. 2 Nicholas of Damascus (Frag. Hist. Grcec., torn. iii. p. 1 28, Miiller's edition). 8 ARRIAN, Anabasis, ii. 3 ; ^ELIAN, De natura animalium, xiii. ; Q. Curtius, iii. i. 4 Ardba is the Turkish name for a chariot drawn by oxen. 8 CICERO, De Divinatione, I. xxxvi. 6 Athenseus, x. p. 415, B ; xiv. p. 419, A. ; THEOCRITUS, Idyls, x. 41 ; Pollux, iv. 54. 7 XENOPHON, Anabasis, I. ii. 13; Pausanias, I. iv. 5; Maximus of Tyre, XI. i. ; PHILOSTRATES, Life of Apollonius, vi. 27. ARNOBIUS (Adversus gentes, v. 6) relates the same story of Agdistis> whom Dionysius overpowers with a generous vintage by the same means. CUSTOMS AND RELIGION OF THE PHRYGIANS. 27 of God and man, abound in the Homeric poems, and prove the high esteem in which vine-culture was held ; nor was there lack of flesh, which the Phrygians consumed in prodigious quantities, of milk and fruit, and of such rude comfort as is to be found in primi- tive communities (Iliad, iii. 401 ; xi. 184, etc.). The Phrygians do not seem to have had a taste for warlike adventures or commercial transactions involving long voyages. They were content to sell their raw products, including, perhaps, metals, gold and silver, found on many a point of their territory ; especially gold dust washed down by rivulets flowing down the rocky mountains. This it was which, as with their neighbours, the Lydians, gave " royal power to their kings ; " and though they obeyed a military chief, they remained to the last a quiet, unoffending people. Thus it came to pass that, despite the strong position afforded by their hilly country, they fell an easy prey in turn to the Cimmerians and Lydians. Albeit accounted of slow understanding by their quick-witted neighbours, they could boast a mighty past, and were the first inland tribes that made use of an alphabet derived from Phoenician letters. They left no literature ; but neither did their neighbours, the Lydians and Lycians, whose political existence was more brilliant, and extended over a longer series of years. Their writing, however, is known from the inscriptions already referred to. The substitution of the Greek for the Phrygian language was effected in the time of the Seleucidse. The writers of that day, struck with much that was new and quaint in the narratives recounted to them, set about noting down the chief events and first struggles towards greater light — at least, as they appeared to them — of the beginnings of the people with whom they had become connected. In so doing much that it were interesting to know, myths, details connected with their religion and history, were rejected as rude and uncouth, altogether unworthy to figure in their pages ; whilst many a fact was distorted or softened down to suit their prejudices. Never- theless we are too severe in our strictures against the Greeks for the part they played in the reviving and editing of the folk-lore of these inland tribes, forgetting that without them the literary monu- ments in question would never have been heard of. If the written records of the Phrygian nation consist of but a few obscure texts graven on stone, their tombs show them to have been possessed of genuine talent for plastic art. Were these non-existent, 28 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. however, the nature of their legendary lore would be enough to prove their rare artistic gifts. They certainly were a vigorous, impassioned race, whose imagination, by turn graceful, tender, melancholy, and lively, is reflected in the myths which go by their name. They were great lovers of music, and, as the inventors of the flute, gave proof of real originality of mind. If not the first who had brought sounds out of the reed, as the Hellenes said, they had shown how much could be made of the simple instrument. On the margin of Lake Aulokrene, "the spring of the flute,"1 it was further alleged, hard by Kelaense, grew reeds of superior quality, emitting the most resonant sounds. The close relationship between Armenians and Phrygians has been referred to ; now, in the Armenian language elegen signifies reed, a word Greek lexicographers were unable to explain, albeit rendered familiar to them from about the seventh century B.C. by the elegos (whence elegy), poems of Callinus of Ephesus, and Archilochus of Paros,2 which were heard throughout the cities of Ionia with due accompaniment of the flute. The Greeks passed readily from one mood to another, and took great delight in opposing the lyre to the flute ; the deep dulcet tones of the former lulled the soul, whilst the shrill penetrating notes of the latter excited the nerves to quick resolve, often to deadly strife.3 ' 1 DUNCKER, Geschichte des Alterthums, torn. i. p. 384. BERNHARDY (Grundriss der Griechischen Litteratur, § 101, nn.) discusses at length the more or less absurd derivations put forth by Greek grammarians, in their vain attempts to prove the Greek origin of eA.eyos. He is of opinion that it was an old Asiatic word, the real meaning of which was lost in its passage across Asia Minor and the yEgean. BOETTICHER (Arica, 34) derives «?Aeyos from elegn, reed, and elegnery, a flute made of reeds. On the other hand, HANS FLACH (Geschichte des Griechischen Lyrik, etc., 8°, 1883, torn. i. p. 158, note 2) connects eXeyos with a different group of Armenian words : jegern orjetern, misfortune; jejerakan,jelarakan, tragic, fatal, whence elegy, funeral song, to weep, to lament, etc. In our estimation Boetticher's theory, which would connect elegos with flute, is more likely to be right ; for the word, at the out- set, had not the exclusive meaning of plaintive poetry, and elegn comes nearer elegos \han. jelern,jererakan, and the like adduced by Flach. The hypothesis, too, is more consonant with what we know of elegiac poetry, in which Callinus (778 B.C.), Archilochus (685), Tyrtaeus (684), Mimnermus, and Solon (558) excelled. Elegy was sometimes melancholy and mournful, sometimes amorous and martial; used, too, by moralists and politicians to air their ideas, or explain away their public action. The themes might be divergent, but the rhythm never varied, and as long as such pieces were sung, it was to music expressly composed for the flute. 3 ARISTOTLE, Politico, VIII. vii. 8, 9. 8 PLATO, Republic, iii. p. 399. CUSTOMS AND RELIGION OF THE PHRYGIANS. 29 Each style of music had its partisans : Apollo led the choir of the lutists, and Pan and Marsyas were faithful to the native reed. Our duller northern sense is slow to grasp how impressions so wide apart, yet alike in their mastery, should have been aroused in the breasts of the ancient Greeks, albeit most of us can feel the difference of tone produced by wind or string instru- ments. Whether due to the complex and scientific character of modern music, certain it is that, except to southern nations who have retained much of the impressionable nature of primi- tive societies, it no longer is an all-engrossing force, a sub- jugation of the senses as irresistible and as much to be dreaded as inebriation. The supreme sway music is apt to exercise over the impres- sionable mind of youth was fully acknowledged and taken into account by ancient philosophers in their educational plans. Plato banishes the flute from his ideal Republic ; x and Aristotle 2 is of opinion that the young should not be exposed to music of necessity married to the captivating strains of elegiac verse which in his day still went by the name of Phrygian, as likely to lead to self- indulgence and debauchery of the worst kind. Nor were their apprehensions ill founded, for the melodies played on the flute bore strong and unmistakable signs of their origin ; of having sprung up in the frenzied transports of public rituals to which the Greek gave the name of " orgies," and which were associated with the cults of Thrace, Syria, and Asia Minor. The religious belief of Phrygia was but the worship of the powers of nature ; its festivals were a sacred drama, the subject of which was the eternal struggle between life and death, light and darkness, youth and decay. Upon this theme a rich fancy rang the changes according to time and place. The waxing and waning of the moon, the revolution of the glittering spheres, the rising of the sun, its daily sinking below the horizon and its disappearance in the gloom of night, are phenomena well calculated to strike terror in the imagination of primitive man. Experience enables us to view with equanimity, if not with indifference, the varying phases of the complexes that sum up the universe. But it was not so in those early days, and we can imagine the anxiety with which men watched the rapid succession of the seasons in a region of climatic extremes. But yesterday the tableland lay under a 1 PLATO, Republic, iii. p. 399. 2 ARISTOTLE, Politico, VIII. vii. 8, 9. 3O HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. white covering of snow, which the wind took up, tumbled about and cast from the heights, it being arrested by fretted rocks on whose surface the dust of summer still adheres. The moisture, helped by the sun, quickens even the bare stone, and covers it with soft green and a profusion of flowers which expand in the air their sweet perfume. This is not the place for attempting to unravel the confused mass of the mythic cycle of Phrygia, which we only know in the garbled account of the Greeks, whom it moved to laughter, or the still more distorted version of Clement of Alexandria and Arno- bius.1 Yet all was not puerile, fanciful, and obscene in these myths as held by the fathers, for, despite multiplicity of names and whimsical variants applied to the same personage, we can go back to the time when the religion of these inland tribes was centred in a divine couple — a solar or god of heaven whom they worshipped as Papas,2 father, whom the Greeks identified with Zeus, and a goddess, Ma, Amma, mother (Rhea, with the Romans), the personi- fication of the earth.3 Great reverence was paid to the female deity, in her character of goddess-mother, and the first place was assigned to her in all public festivities, contrary to the custom which prevails with people of different race. This was no other than Cybele, whose altar, accompanied by an inscription now 1 In our account of the Phrygian religion we have followed M. A. MAURY, Hist, des religions de la Grhe antique t torn. iii. pp. 79-100 ; as well as DUNCKER, Geschichte des Alterthums, torn. i. pp. 338-390 ; ED. MAYER, Geschichte des Alterthums, torn. i. p. 253 ; and FRANCOIS LENORMANT, Sabazius (Revue Arch'e., N.S., torn, xxviii. pp. 300-389 ; torn. xxix. pp. 43-51)- 2 Arrian tells us that the Bithynians, who are nearly related to the Phrygians, call Zeus Papas : dviovrcs cts TO. oxpa T£>V opwv fttOvvol exaAovv IlaTrav TOV Alia (Bithyn., EUSTACHIUS, p. 565, 4). See also Diodorus Siculus, III. Iviii. 4, who states that Atys was addressed as Papas in after times by the Phrygians. Two names, supposed to have belonged to ancient towns whose site is unknown, are compounded with the form Manes; Manegordion, Manesion. Inscriptions and statues in honour of Men are plentiful during the Macedonian and Roman period throughout the peninsula. With regard to this god, his cult, and many appellations, consult GUIGNIAUT, Religions de Fantiquite, torn. ii. p. 962, and more especially WADDINGTON, Voyage Arche. Le Bas, v. Nos. 667, 668. 8 Etimologium magnum, s.v. Amma; Stephanus Byzantinus, s.v. Mastaura, name of a Lydian town. 'ExaXeiTO Se KCU rj 'Pea Ma /cai raupos avrfj fOvero Trapa AvSois. Ma was likewise understood in the sense of mother by the Greeks. MS ya, Ma ya (p.yrr)p yr?) is found in AESCHYLUS, SuppL^ 890-899. M^rtyp opeia, fJUJTrjp t'Sata (Strabo), Phrygia mater (Virgil), were exact transliterations from the various names borne by Cybele in her Phrygian home. CUSTOMS AND RELIGION OF THE PHRYGIANS. 31 obliterated, has been discovered by Professor Ramsay. Fortu- nately for us, however, the two initial words, " Matar Kubile," written in sunk characters, can be easily made out (Fig. 3).1 Next in popularity and importance was the lunar god Men, whose cult spread throughout Asia Minor, and thence to Greece and Rome.2 Statuary generally represents him as a man of youthful appearance.3 Greek and Latin writers, to whom we owe the little that is known of the Phrygian religion, men- tion, in relation with Cybele, a god whom they variously call Bagaios, Sabazius, Atys, and Agdistis.4 That . . YlG, 3. — Phrygian inscription. RAM- SO Widely different should be SAY, On the Early Historical Rela- * J-* - -. _ T>1 _ * _ ITT .... . tions, Plate III. applied to the same personage is rather puzzling at first ; but philology will perhaps help us out of the difficulty. If, according to the best authorities, words said to belong to the Phrygian idiom admit of being explained by Indo-European roots, Bagaios was simply a generic term for god ; 5 Sabazios, Sabazius, a eulogistic epithet signifying vener- able, worthy of adoration.6 The real and proper name of the god was Atys or Agdistis. Atys may be a dialectic variant, an abbreviation of the older and more complete form of Agdistis, 1 There is also the form Cybele, sometimes found in Greek lexicographers and in inscriptions of this goddess, which, like Fig. 3, seems to indicate a late modifica- tion of the name. 2 Among the Thracians, who owned community of blood and religion with the Phrygians, Sabazius is a solar god (MACROBIUS, Saturnalia, i. 18). The great Phrygian deity was styled TTOI/A^ \CVKWV aorpwv (Philosophumena, Miller, p. 118), a periphrase clearly intended to designate the sun, and to be read in an ancient hymn cited by Origen, or whoever was the author of the book which bears his name. MACROBIUS (Saturn., i. 22) identifies Atys with the sun : " Solent Phryges sub nomine Attinis ornant et fistula et virga." 8 In the psalms Men, lunar god, is described as the great " measurer." — TRS. 4 It is possible that Agdistis may be a local name, as Dindymene, Sipylene, etc., applied to Cybele, according to the places in which she was worshipped. Pausa- nias (I. iv. 5) specifies a mountain, 'AySo?, in Phrygia as the burial-place of Atys. Professor RAMSAY (Sifiytos, p. 56) recognizes in dySos the Phrygian word which signified mountain, and which he compares with the Greek 0^605, hill; whence Agdistis, "the son of the mountain." It may be asked whether "mountain" was not invented to explain a name which was no longer understood. In other forms of the myth, Agdistis has ceased to be a male god, and appears with all the attributes of Cybele. 6 See p. 3, note, of this volume. 6 Compare the Greek word vefifiv ; Sanscrit, sabhadj, honoured, revered. 32 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. which in process of time it wholly superseded.1 Atys is the form usually used by poets and historians ; we also find :it as a proper name in Lydia. The worshippers of Atys, as those of the Syrian Adonis, were in no sense of the word rapt and passive spectators of the rites enacted before them by the officiating priest. To them the oft- recurring drama was a thrilling reality, in which men and women all felt an interest and helped on the unfolding of the cosmic tragedy, during which were depicted the anomalies of terrestrial life, ever failing of its purpose, yet fulfilling it ; arrested in its onward progress, yet bounding on with renewed energy. With a potency of which we can form no idea, the assembled multitude grieved for the orb which, pursued by the hurricane, grew wan and pale, and was presently engulfed within black clouds or the greater gloom of night ; for the plants that wither under the hot breath of summer, whose foliage turns sere and whose sap ceases to run under the wintry blast. A few months later, the same multitude joyed in the return of light and warmth ; it trembled with delight at the reawakening of the god, an event celebrated in a festival that was far away the more important of the two ; it lasted six days, and consisted of two parts widely different in their import : a funereal pageant, followed by solemn rejoicings.2 In both, the procession moved to the confused sound in turn of funereal chants, tambourines, cymbals, and flutes.3 Branches of pine were carried on the shoulders of the worshippers as a symbol of undying life, a token that the dead they saw before them would rise again.4 In this way they reached the grave previously prepared, into which the god was 1 Greek manuscripts and inscriptions spell the name "Arus, "Arrvs, indifferently. Scores of towns in Asia Minor, apparently compounded with the name of the god, have also the double consonant : "Arraia, "Arrea, "ArrouSa, and the like. The first word of the inscription on the Midas rock (Fig. i) shows the form ATE2. 2 Pindar (Strabo, X. iii. 12) in a dithyrambic exclaims : " O mother of the gods, cymbals, tambourines, and bagpipes have struck up ; young yellow pines are lighted in token that the festivity has begun." And in one of the so-called Homeric poems (xiii. 3, 4) Cybele is called " the goddess who loves the shrill-sounding crotals, the flute and loud tambourine." Propertius, xvii. 37 ; xvii. ; MACROBIUS, Saturnalia, i. 1 8. 8 LUCIAN, Tragodopodagra, 30-33. 4 " Quid pectoribus applaudentes palmas passis cum crinibus galli" (ARNOBIUS, Adversus gentes, v. 10). CUSTOMS AND RELIGION OF THE PHRYGIANS. 33 about to descend. As he was let down, the throng broke forth in wails and sobs, beating their breasts and tearing their hair.1 In their religious frenzy, some lashed themselves with scourges furnished with bones that tore off great pieces of flesh, and fell a sacrifice to the deity;2 others went further and offered their virility, dedi- cating the rest of their wretched ex- istence to the god who had accepted their self -mutila- tion.3 Thus each of these festivals swelled the number of eunuch -priests, who on public oc- casions were wont to lead the chorus of the devotees of Cybele. Under FIG. 4.— Archi-Gallus. Capitoline Museum. DURUY, Hist, des i r — , Remains, torn. ii. p. 528.' the name of Grseco- Galli, they it was who during Persian, notably Roman rule, carried far and wide the rites and practices of the old Asiatic cults (Fig- 4). 1 Mao-Ti£ do-i-payoAtoTr; (PLUTARCH, Contra Colo(es, xxxiii. 9). Consult also APULEIUS, Metam., viii. 28. 8 SUETONIUS (Otho, viii.) writes that as Otho moved against Vitelius, "die quo cultores deum matris lamentari et plangere incipiunt." 8 Acuto silice (Catul., xliii. 5); rupta testa (Juvenal, vi. 514). We find here, too, the sacredness of stone, in connection with the idea of sacrifice, as against metal (Hist, of Art, torn. iv. p. 373). It will be seen that the epithet semi viri, applied to the priests of Cybele by the Romans, was well deserved. With Italian brevity, the day of flagellations and self-mutilation was indicated in the calendar by a single but pithy word, "Sanguem." Julian's account of the "mysteries of the mother of the gods" (p. 1 68) coincides with the calendar, except that he omits to mention the two last days, i.e. Requies and Lavatio. 4 The effeminate character of the eunuch-priest will be observed. From his ears depend heavy earrings ; a diadem surrounds his brow, formed by three large coins that serve to keep in place the head-tire, which falls in rich folds behind his back. Long rows of pearls on either side of the face reach to his middle, where they rest in the horizontal folds of the shawl, and in a basket brimful of fruit, which he VOL. I. D 34 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. The pageant attending the resurrection was in brilliant con- trast with that which had preceded it. Branches of pine re- appeared amidst the acclamations and the tumults of joy of the multitude, whose delight at the return of the god was translated by gambols and running about.1 The music was in harmony with the new mood. It had been grave, sad, and slow before ; now the clapping of hands, the dancing, capering, singing, and striking of brazen shields to mark the time, could scarcely keep pace with its phrenetic, bewildering movements.2 In order to keep up or renew their flagging spirits, they had recourse to copious libations, until, overcome with fatigue and exhaustion, they one by one fell by the roadside, among the woodlands and vales whither they had wandered. The fifth day was given up to rest, so as to enable them to get over the effect of their violent emotions, and prepare them to return to the routine of daily life. The lavatto, or bath, occurred on the sixth and last day of the performance, when the puppet-god was carried to a clear running stream, stripped of its gay bridal apparel, and plunged into the water, even as a bride on the eve of her marriage.3 The favour enjoyed by Asiatic rituals away from their original supports with his sinister hand; the dexter holding up an olive branch covered with berries. A thick golden chain goes twice round his neck, and from it hangs a golden shrine of Atys, whose image, crowned with the Phrygian tiara, is distinctly seen. Against the wall is a colonnette topped by a bearded bust, perhaps of the same Atys before his self-mutilation, or Zeus-Pater together with a scourge, flute, tambourine, and the mystic cystus. 1 The solemnity of Cybele was opened with the Dendrophory, or carrying the pine to the temple — the arbor intrat of the calendar. With regard to the sacred tree, the fillets always surrounding it, as well as the place it occupied in these mysteries, see ARNOBIUS, Adversus gentes, v. 16; and ZOGA, Bassi rilievi antichi di Roma, torn. i. Plates XIII., XIV. 2 LUCRETIUS, De natura rerum, ii. 621 ; APOLLONIUS, Argonautica, i. 1135-1139. 3 The erection of the famous temple of Cybele and Atys at Pessinus was ascribed to Midas (Diodorus, iii. 58). In obedience to the injunctions of the Sibylline books, the Romans removed, by order of the Senate, the statue, bcetylus, of the goddess to their city, where the rites connected with her mysteries seemed to have followed her. The Italians were particularly careful in washing every year, on the 6th of the calendar of April, her shrine in the waters of the Alno, a rivulet which falls into the Tiber close to Rome. This was in imitation of the ceremony which was yearly enacted at Pessinus, on the banks of the Callus, a stream which flows through the town, where the lavatio could be performed, before it joins the Sanganus. It is evidently in allusion to this rite that Herodotus says, " The Phrygians used to celebrate the orgies of the river Callus, a torrent which flows through the town of Pessinus" (Hist., i. 35). CUSTOMS AND RELIGION OF THE PHRYGIANS. 35 FIG. 5. — Cybele seated on throne. Reverse of bronze coin. Cadi, Phry- gia. DuRUY,/fi'j/. des Remains, torn. i. P- 534- homes, the fascination they exercised over the civilized nations of the old world, are our justification for dwelling, in this place, upon the customs and the religion of a people which has left no images of its gods or heroes. Types which may be traced back to Phrygia and Lydia will be found in the sequel of these studies. Such would be Cybele, her head surmounted by a tall turreted crown, now enthroned, a lion at her side (Fig. 5), now driven in a chariot or riding the king of ferae (Fig. 6), along with a long list of gods and heroes — Menes, Atyses, Midases, and Marsyases, whose nationality is rendered unmistak- able by the Phrygian cap and the trailing broidered robe. To these may be added the Amazons, whose noble type so often figures on ancient Greek vases, where they preserve the character- istics of their national costume. The orgies of Dionysius offered stupendous opportunities to the Greek artist for his portraiture of the human figure in all its varying outline. Under his touch it became a living, pulsating reality, the like of which had never been seen or attempted before ; whether in the endless variety of fold of the disordered dress and dis- hevelled hair, caught up by the breeze, flying far behind, helping not a little the movement of the scene, or the audacious attitudes of the worshippers, men and women, whose conflicting passions, caused by wine and religious frenzy, struggled on to the surface, and were reflected in their whole being. If the name of the deity in whose honour festive bands moved on Mount Cithaeron is different from that with which the sanctuaries of Asia Minor have made us familiar, the oldest examples of orgies are those of Cybele and Atys ; during which nervous excitement trenched on those curious pathological phenomena designated in a general way as hysteria, and which in our day have received the careful attention of the medical profession. Our practical everyday life has nothing which resembles the tumult and rebellion of the senses, the periodical fits of madness, which seized the followers of Cybele during the performance of what may be termed their FIG. 6. — Cybele seated on a lion. Reverse of bronze medallion of the Empress Sabina, wife of Hadrian. DURUY, Hist, des Romains, torn. i. p. 524. 36 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. sacred carnival ; deep gorges and forest gloom being the stage on which it was enacted. We have taken advantage of the opportunity which offered itself here for giving some idea of these strange scenes, so as not to be obliged to refer to them again later on, when we meet on our path a whole series of works inspired by the Bacchanalia. The Greeks, it should be rernembered, in the palmiest days of their political and artistic existence, never lost their taste for the gross pleasures afforded by the orgies, nor the tradition of their origin ; for in their wildest transports they invoked, as occasion served, the Phrygian Cybele or the Thracian Dionysius. That which strictly belongs to Greek genius is to have been the first to feel, or at least to render, the beauty of the human form, as it revealed itself in the agitation and abandonment of the dance ; its lines, as those of the drapery, changing with each step ; the latter now clinging to the body, now filled with the breeze and carried over the shoulders of the dancers. ( 37 ) CHAPTER II. PHRYGIAN ART. SlPYLUS AND ITS MONUMENTS. THE Sipylus forms a short range of mountains on the north of the Gulf of Smyrna, about ten leagues from east to west, by three or four broad. It naturally divides itself into three parts : the lamanlar-Dagh, to the west, is but 976 m. high ; the Manissa-Dagh, to the east, reaches 1500 m. ; whilst the Sabanja-Dagh holds a middle course, and serves as intermediary between the other two l (Fig. 7). Each section has characteristic features of its own, engendered by difference of geological formation. Thus the western district, from the river Bournabat to Menemen, is a trachytic rock, with beautiful patches of red, black, and blue ; but the eastern, which is far the most imposing, belongs to the secondary system, or the period intervening between eruptive and sedimentary formations. It rises high and formidable on the north and east sides, forming almost perpendicular walls, inter- sected by grottoes and gigantic faults, which seem to run right through the hill, with cones and hillocks towards the south of great beauty of form and colour, yellow, red, and brown. The 1 Our description of the Sipylus and its monuments is derived from the following sources, to which we refer the reader who should wish to obtain ampler information : — T£XIER, Description deFAsie Mineure, torn. ii. pp. 249-259; PlatesCXXIX. — CXXXI. bis; HAMILTON, Researches in Asia Minor, torn. i. ch. iv. ; A. CHERBULIEZ, La ville de Smyrne et son orateur Aristide, 410, 1863 et 1865 (Extrait des Me moires de flnstitut national genevois) ; CURTIUS, Beitrdge zur Geschichte und TopOgraphUn Kleinasiens (Abhandlungen of the Berlin Academy, 1872, notably chapter headed " Alt Smyrna," with Plates IV. and VI.); WEBER, Le Sipylos et ses monuments, 8vo, 1880 (Paris, Ducher) ; KARL HEUMANN, Ein Ausflug in den Sipylos (WESTERMANN, Illust. Deut- schen Monatsheften, Juli, 1885, Brunswick), 8vo ; W. M. RAMSAY, Ncu>ly discovered Sites near Smyrna (Journal of Hellenic Studies, torn. i. pp. 63-74) ; Studies in Asia Minor, 2, Sipylos and Cybele (Journ., torn. iii.). HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. lamanlar-Dagh lacks boldness of outline, afforded by precipitous cliffs and steep ravines ; but from its long fretted line of crest, innumerable spurs run out towards the south, west, and east in curious fan-like fashion, seeming to invite the pedestrian to ascend their gentle declivity (Fig. 8). The summits may be stony and bare ; but the slopes have enough vegetable soil, notably in the ravines, where the moisture drained from the mountains 5 to FIG. 7. — Map of Sipylus. CURTIUS, Beitrage, Plate IV. lasts for many a month, to enable the farmer to grow corn, vines, olive, and other fruit-bearing trees. The western side, therefore, was marked out by nature to shelter from the earliest days a compact group, brought thither by proximity of a clement, unruffled sea, and a soil naturally productive. Consequently, here and here alone can we expect to find traces of a long settlement, with all that the term implies. The oldest structures must of necessity occur on the summit ; but, as the conditions of life improved, they would gradually spread down the slopes on to the flat level around Bournabat, where the primitive tribe finally settled. SlPYLUS AND ITS MONUMENTS. 39 I en Its passage, however, has been obliterated by countless genera- tions that have suc- ceeded each other and contended for this rich, loamy piece of ground. Here, on the old road skirting the river Her- mus, rose Magnesia, now Manissa, which, though much shrunk from its former size, has not ceased to be a bustling place, teeming with life and activity. On the other hand, the narrow ravines and pre- cipitous sides of the Manissa - Dagh afford very insufficient space for figures, tombs, or temporary refuges, of course scooped out of the solid rock. Attention was forcibly drawn to this district in early days, both on ac- count of the advantages it offered by land and sea, and the remains which connected it with a remarkable past. Pau- sanias, a native of this neighbourhood, writes of it as the seat of the Pe- lopidai. " Our country," he says, "affords many proofs of the reign of Tantalus and Pelops, proofs that are extant to this day; to wit, the lake and the tomb of Tantalus, the throne of HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. Pelops on the summit of Sipylus,1 above the Hieron of Mother Plastene " (v. 1 3). A little further on, he speaks of " the oldest known statue of the Mother of the Gods, to be seen in the district of Magnesia,2 and of the rock that looked for all the world like Scqle. FIG. g. — Topographical sketch of site north-west of Bournabat. CURTIUS, Beitrage, Plate IV. a woman immersed in grief," which popular fancy identified with Niobe.3 1 Weber translates TavraXou \ip.vr] by Tantaleis Harbour; but Xi/m; is not synonymous with Ai/tiyv, and, unless we suppose an error in the manuscripts, it must apply to one of the small lakes, the Kiz Gheul, or more probably still the Kara Gheul, actually found in the lamanlar- Dagh (see Fig. 8). 2 Ibid., iii. 22. 8 Jbid.,\. 21. SlPYLUS AND ITS MONUMENTS. The monuments may be divided into two distinct groups, cor- responding with the sharply defined regions east and west of Sipylus. Aided by the excellent map drawn for us by M. Hirschfeld (Fig. 9), we will begin with the remains on the lamanlar-Dagh, specified by Pausanias, leaving for the last the statue of Cybele on Mount Codine, and the curious rock which recalled the pathetic legend of Niobe, situate on the eastern side. The site of the lamanlar-Dagh group is fixed by the Tantaleis tomb. With this should be ranged other vestiges in the immediate FIG. 10. — Post of observation on Sipylus. CURTIUS, Beitriige, Plate VI. neighbourhood, bearing unquestionable marks of antiquity. The creek or primitive harbour, now covered by the alluvial plain around Bournabat, from which it takes its name, is found on the north of Smyrna. Facing the modern town of Haji Mujor (Fig. 9) is an isolated hillock, which in former days was an island at the entrance of the harbour, and served to render its waters " as smooth as oil." If one ascends the undulating ground which, on the north, looks down upon the ancient haven, a necropolis, •whose graves are all tumuli, is first met with, and a little higher up is the Acropolis, along with other structures cut in the solid rock, with general direction to west. These remains consist of 42 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. terraces levelled out on the summit of a massive rock 15 m. long, but the use of which is not easy to make out. Some think that the site, commanding as it does the plain of Bournabat and the Bay of Smyrna, was used as a vedette (Fig. 10) — a supposition which would account for the steps leading to the esplanades, but would shed no light on the excava- tion, 2 m. long, cut in the centre of one of these open floors. Was this a grave or a trench, in which a man could lie unperceived as he scanned the surrounding country ? Be this as it may, the fact that a fortress, numerous graves, stairways, platforms, and the like are crowded in a narrow space, leads to the conclusion that this was the site of the old city, by many centuries the senior of Greek Smyrna. Then, too, fragments of Cyclopaean walls, some running from north to south, intersected by others so as to form irregular enclosures, meet the eye along the whole side of the hill. Others, again, are barely visible above ground, and might be taken for walls built by the farmers to keep the earth in position, or pen their animals,1 but for the distinct testimony of Texier (who made a thorough study of the site and of all the monuments) to the effect that, although in places the stones are of varying size, they are so deftly fitted together as to produce a level surface, so that one is sorely tempted to make them coeval with the Acropolis and the neighbouring tombs. This elevated spot, with outlook towards the valleys of Smyrna and the Nif Chai, was the first to be inhabited ; but the settlers do not seem to have been a seafaring or colonizing race, but to have chiefly relied on the natural pro- ductiveness of the soil and inland traffic. The Acropolis, which forms the culminating point of these various remains, occupied a secondary summit 350 m. high — some 1250 m., as a bird flies, from the sea below. Half an hour's walk takes you to it, but the last part is a stiff bit of climbing. The south side is almost perpendicular, and its approach on the west is rendered difficult by quarries, whence was obtained the material for the erection of the rampart (Fig. u). The hill, of which the summit forms an elongated plateau, measured lengthwise, is barely 45 m. 1 T£xiER (Description, torn. ii. pp. 255, 258) thinks that this was a long wall of enclosure, which served to connect the necropolis, together with public and private buildings, with the fortress. On the other hand, HAMILTON (Researches, p. 49) and G. HIRSCHFELD (Alt Smyrna) believe that all these walls are modern ; whilst WEBER (La Sipylos] would divide them into two sets, ancient and modern. SlPYLUS AND ITS MONUMENTS. 43 by 30 m. broad. It is divided in two parts : an outer court to the east, and an inner, fenced on the north, south, and west sides, c, D, by a double rampart, particularly noticeable on the north and east. Of wall G fragments alone exist, yet they suffice to show that it was parallel to c, D. The Acropolis was protected on the south by the natural escarp of the rock, to which additional strength was given by a wall wholly disap- peared. Towards the east, where the hillock rises above the level of the plateau, are flat are shelves with small ob- long grooves, evidently made to receive the foundation stones of the outer wall. On the north side the gentle declivity of the hill made it ne- cessary to resort to precautionary measures. These are found in a supporting wall which skirted the road, run- ning along a narrow ridge up to a gateway about four feet wide, which it entered at right angles, and a square tower in front of it. FIG. II. — Acropolis of lamanlar Dagh. Le Sipylos, Plate 1. Plan. WEBER, The approach to the Acropolis on the west was defended by ramparts scooped out of the projecting rock, which so narrowed the path as to allow only room for a man at a time (H). A huge excavation or ditch, hollowed in the rock on the left side of the path, whose wall below the escarp was almost perpendicular, is still seen (j). The ditch was covered by an outer wall on the left ; a second (c, B, in plan), far the best constructed and the best preserved, crowned the talus (Fig. 12). The constructive scheme of the area wall shows that it was the work of one architect, although it exhibits stones with vertical 44 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. joints carefully squared at c, polygonal at B, with horizontal courses and oblique joints at o ; thus yielding another instance of the danger of dating ancient structures from a small portion only. Builders in early days placed their materials exactly as they came from the quarry, without troubling themselves as to the effect they would ultimately produce. Blocks cut of the required shape, which should harmonize with a given style, were a late development. It remains to notice two curious details. A ditch, approached by steps, enabled the defenders to take refuge in it when assaulted and obliged to withdraw into the fortress. The north-east angle of the external wall (B, Fig. 1 1), facing the ditch, was strengthened by a retaining semicircular wall, four courses of which still exist, and at a distance look like an unfinished tower. A quadrangular salience will be observed in the north face of the rampart which surrounds the eastern court (F, Fig. 1 1). This is divided into two equal sections by a partition of polygonal masonry, akin to the Acropolis properly FIG. 12. — Northern wall of the Acropolis, seen from the outside. WEBER, Plate I. so called, save that the stones are smaller. The western court was a veritable redoubt, and numerous traces and fragments of walls bear witness to the effort of the builder to render it as strong as possible and capable of resisting sudden attacks from without. A hole towards the north-east corner, with rubbish lying in a circle, probably covers the site of an ancient cistern. The spade alone would reveal its true character, as also the real use of the walls at E, built of stones carefully dressed, forming a central square in the redoubt, measuring six or eight metres each way. By no means the least interesting item of this Acropolis is the gateway (A, Fig. n), with sides sloping upwards, giving .it the appearance of a truncated arch (Fig. 13). It is closed at the top by two massive lintels of equal length, placed one behind the other. The exterior slab measures two metres by seventy-four centimetres, whilst the inner is ninety centimetres in height. It gave access SlPYLUS AND ITS MONUMENTS. 45 to a slanting passage, at the end of which was probably a flight of steps leading to the esplanade, but now buried under stones that have fallen in. The roofing of the passage consisted of huge slabs. We have already directed attention to the regularity of the material about the gateway, notably on the .left side. It is self- evident that the unequal size of the blocks determined its having two courses on the dexter hand and three on the sinister. Here and there the lines are broken, even crooked ; nevertheless there is a decided tendency towards horizontal courses. The subser- viency of the builder to the stonecutter is marked throughout. FIG. 13. — Gate to Acropolis. WEBER, Plate I. The principal eminence was selected as the site of the Acropolis, for the double purpose of making its defence an easy matter and allowing of efficient vigilance being exercised over the whole surrounding country. The necropolis was not exposed to the same risks, and could conveniently be placed on a lower grade, namely, the rocky slopes which descend towards the plain of Bournabat and overhang the ancient harbour (Fig. 9). The tumuli are about forty-five in number, and exhibit constructive skill enough. They are all stone-built and on the same pattern— a conical mass reposing on a circular substructure, itself in touch with the living rock. Down to 1835, the more imposing, commonly called the Tantaleis tomb, could be descried from the quay ; in that year it was ex- plored by Texier and a number of sailors placed at his disposal by the French admiral, Massieu de Clerval, stationed at Smyrna 46 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. (Fig. 14). The roof had already fallen in, but the sides were intact, and their present state is due to shafts sunk in the centre of the mass by T^xier. Before doing so, however, he had the tumulus carefully measured. The annexed woodcuts, as well as Texier's verbal description, will enable the reader to grasp its inner arrangements.1 Its diameter is 33 m. 60 c., or 105 m. 537 c. round. It forms a perfect circle, and is wholly built of small stones, laid out without mortar (Fig. 15). The centre is occupied by a rectangular chamber 3 m. 55 c. by 2 m. 17 c., and 2 m. 86 c. in FIG. 14. — View of tomb of Tantalus before the excavations. TixiER, Description, Plate CXXX. height under the centre of the arch (Fig. 16). The courses are horizontal throughout, and on average from 55 c. to 20 c. high. The vaulted appearance of the chamber is due to the corbel arrangement of the masonry ; but there is no true arch, and, as a natural consequence, there is no key, the vacant space at the top being closed by a huge stone set on the last two courses (Fig. i7).2 The mortuary chamber had no passage, and was 1 TEXIER, Description de FAsie Mineure, torn. ii. pp. 253, 254. We have used WEBER'S Sipylos, pp. 19, 20, to check Tdxier's narrative. 3 Fig. 17 is after Weber, he. at., Plate I. He was the first to notice that the curve formed by the ogee begins from the base of the chamber, and not, as stated SlPYLUS AND ITS MONUMENTS. 47 walled up after the body had been laid in it. The space around, measuring 3 m. 50 c., was tightly packed with stones of different FIG. 15.— Plan of tomb of Tantalus. TEXIER, Description, Plate CXXX. sizes so as to fill up every interstice ; eight partitions, 2 m. 70 c. long FIG. 16. — Chamber of tomb of Tantalus, Longi- FIG. 17. — Chamber of tomb of Tantalus, tudinal section. T£xiER, Description, Plate Transverse section. WEBER, LeSipylos, CXXXI. Plate I. and three stones deep, ran from the central nucleus to a first by Te'xier, from the third course. As to the hollows which appear towards the top and the middle of the wall, they are due to attempts doubtless made with a view to ascertain the existence of some secret passage to the grave-chamber ere it was closed up. Similar attempts proved vain, for nothing has been revealed save a stony mass. 48 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. circular wall, whence started other sixteen, which extended to the external wall, 3 m. 70 c. thick. The depth of this wall was not constant ; thus the upper part was built of large stones and 2 m. 36 c. thick, whilst the lower was but i m. 50 c. To bring it to about the same strength, therefore, an internal and external casing was added. Outwardly, it was quite plain, the only attempt at decoration being a stylobate which rests on a rude plinth, the substructure of the tumulus, and a cornice of feeble salience. It would be hard to conceive a better-devised construction, so as to enable it to withstand the action of the weather for many centuries. The intervening spaces between the partition walls are filled in with pebbles, closely packed and admirably put together, though without cement. Thanks to its solidity, the structure must have been preserved in good condition down to the last days of antiquity, protected as it was by the memories and traditions which attached to it. It was a striking object in the landscape — the first to greet the mariner on his return, the last to remind him of the home he left behind ; bequeathed, too, said tradition, by revered ancestors, and one " that could not be buried out of sight" — OVK d^a^r;?, as Pausanias has it. Every- thing seems to indicate that the tumulus under notice is the Tantaleis tomb. When Tdxier began his labours part of the roof was standing ; given the diameter and the direction of the slope, the whole height, which he computes at 27 or 28 m., could be easily ascertained. The only data which present some un- certainty are the dimensions of the finial. This ornament has not been found, though it is not difficult to divine its nature. Around many other tumuli in the necropolis, whose decorative scheme and arrangement proclaim them coeval with the Tantaleis tomb, quite a large number of phalli of red trachyte have been discovered half embedded in the ground. In size they average from 40 c. to i m. 40 c. Primitive symbols of life and immortality, such phallic emblems, when introduced as finials, had exactly the same value as the rosette in Greek buildings. It is self-evident that the bases of all these phalli were intended to fit some cavity where they would not be seen, for they were left rough. Curiously 1 It is curious that Tdxier, who dug his way into the tumulus, should not have stated in what condition he found ttoe grave-chamber. Did he pick up antique fragments ? If so, he has kept the secret to himself. Sll'YLUS AND ITS MONUMENTS. 49 enough, holes of corresponding size appear on the apex of the tumuli. The phallus is not uniform in shape — far from it — but evinces great variety. Among the more advanced forms are globular caps, with listel supported on stems (Fig. 18) ; elsewhere we find the usual conical ending (Fig. 19), and some few exemplars are mere cylinders with central swelling.1 The Tantaleis tomb, as the larger and more important of the group, rises at the top of a hill somewhat apart from the others by which it is surrounded, as a monarch by his subjects. These are closely packed to- gether, connected sometimes by a wall, and one was found with two chambers. Being more lightly built than the larger tumulus, their state is even more ruinous, and treasure - seekers found less difficulty in bringing about their demolition. All have been opened from the roof or the sides, and in many instances nothing remains to mark the site but a heap of earth and rubbish. With the ex- ception of these the plan can always be made out. Sometimes it is very similar to that of the Tantaleis sepulchre, doubtless built for a king, and as such must have been taken as pattern. The mortuary chamber has been walled up after the entomb- ment, and a stone-work, set without mortar, made around it. It is intersected by partitions of channelled masonry, which, start- ing from the grave, extend to the exterior wall (Fig. 20). The 1 About half a mile eastward of the colossal Cybele are tombs, and hard by Professor Sayce noticed between two triangular niches an immense phallus figured on the rocky wall (Hell. Studies, torn. i. p. 90). The learned professor observes that the phallus in question is a stalagmitic formation. — TRS. VOL. i. K FIG. 18. — Terminal phallus. WEBER, Le Sipylot, Plate II. FIG. 19. —Terminal phallus. WEBER, Ibid., Plate II. HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. FIG. 20. — Tumulus of dry stones. TfexiER, Description, Plate CXXXI. only difference is this : that as the tumulus is much smaller, multi- tudinous concentric circles were not required ; hence from each angle of the central block, which is square, stone divisions of chan- nelled masonry ran parallel one to the other, until they met the outside wall. There is yet a simpler type (Fig. 21), interesting from the fact that the flat arched chamber could be entered at all times by a broad passage covered with stone flags. It had no divisionary supports; a rude masonry of uncemented stones of average size extended from the central block to the circular wall. Large blocks were reserved for the substructure and the inner casing. De>spite these drawbacks, it had enough solidity for its purpose. In the floor of some of these tombs, which is one with the living rock, a trough has been excavated for receiving the body. Around it may still be seen a shallow groove, which fitted the covering slab or stones. The orientation of the tombs is not constant, and, in each case, seems to have been determined by the hypsometric lines of the mountain. The Tantaleis memorial points north-east and south-east at an angle of sixty de- grees. Remains of another im- portant monument should be classed along with the Sipylus group, whose mode of execution, in part structural and in part rock-cut, they reproduce. We may consider the exemplar, therefore, as likewise the work of the people who placed their tombs betwixt the harbour and the fortress. The FlG. 21. — Tumulus of dry stones. TEXIER, Description, Plate CXXXI. SlPYLUS AND ITS MONUMENTS. bold hillock which bears these ruins is further inland and on a lower plane than the Acropolis, on a line with the village of Petrota, towards the head of the valley washed by a stream, supposed to be the Acheleos. Its truncated summit, with vertical sides, forms a striking feature in the landscape which it commands ; and to this circumstance it probably owes its modern name of Ada, " island.' l FIG. 22. — Plan of Sanctuary in the lamanlar Dagh. WEBER, Le Sipylos, Plate III. It is a plateau more or less level, 70 m. by 20 m., which divides itself into three distinct parts (Fig. 22) : a square, massive rock to the north, with precipitous sides 4 m. high (N in plan) ; an esplanade on a lower level with a circular hole in the middle, resembling the mouth of a cistern or well (R) ; and, by far the most remarkable feature, a gigantic rock, 22 m. by 13 m. broad, which forms the southern extremity of the ridge (M). A deep chasm, 8 m. long 1 RAMSAY, Ntu>ly discovered Sites, p. 68. HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. FIG. 23. — Sanctuary. Section through A B. Plate III. WEBER, Le Sipylos, by 4 m. wide and 4 m. deep, appears at the north-east angle (A in plan, Fig. 23). The bottom of this excavation is occupied by a kind of chamber open to the sky, 5 m. by 2 m. 20 c. (Fig. 24). The main walls are connected with one end of the grave-chamber by a thin circularwall; at the other they disappear under rubble and large blocks (d) which have rolled down into the excavation. The courses which form the walls of this chamber are very regular (Fig. 25) ; they are 36 c. high, and the length of the units varies between 39 and 72 c. Around it, distant i m., runs a polygonal wall which closed the entrance towards the north (Fig. 24, c, 6), and protected the east side where the rock is not very high (H). The esteem in which the monument was regarded may be gathered from the works of art surrounding it. As far as the con- figuration of the ground permits, which to the south and west breaks off and rapidly sinks, the ridge we have described is embraced, at a distance, by an external wall. It runs parallel to the two colossal rocks for 30 m. or thereabouts, towards the east, where a low ridge projects from the plateau. It follows the sinuosi- ties of the cliff on the south-east, and forms salient and retreating angles of the utmost nicety (/>), sweeping round the north-west side of the hill with a mighty curve (B, c, F, in plan). Here the cliff projects beyond the line of the wall into a kind of pro- montory, with precipitous sides ; the rampart at first follows the ridge, then from F to G, where it terminated, it is carried in a straight line across the valley, and thus becomes a supporting wall to the plateau (Fig. 26). On the south face the rampart only extends as far as the rock M, where a ledge occurs, which it enters at right angles. Beyond it, the side of the hill being almost perpendicular, a wall became superfluous. FlG. 24. — The Sanctuary. Plan of chamber. WEBER, Ibid. SlPYLUS AND ITS MONUMENTS. 53 The masonry of the rampart throughout, like the walls of the Acropolis, presents great variety. Thus, on the western and part of the eastern face (F, G, D, in plan), it is frankly polygonal ; some- times the courses are horizontal, but with oblique joints (E), whilst at c it very much resembles Hellenic work (Fig. 27). The principal entrance was approached by a flight of steps, which seems to have been on the northern face (q), where the wall breaks off suddenly, leaving a space i m. 50 c. wide. According to Weber (from FIG. 25. — Sanctuary. Wall of chamber. '* '3 K'J WEBER, Le Sipylos, Plate III. FlG. 26. — Sanctuary. Section through F H. WEBER, Ibid. whom the foregoing description is taken), no traces of structures, to speak of, exist on the plateau, save the sinking in the northern court already referred to, and some pmtm few remains on the southern face (s, /). But these are so character- less as to throw no light on the nature of the original buildings. For what purpose were the ramparts and the chamber erected, is a question to which no certain answer can be given. For although the first notion suggested by the presence of a rampart on an in- sulated plateau is that of a strong- hold, there are features about it which seem to *4*¥*^5^2sr-p -><3i_ --.- "" -' ~ 1fc\. V ',****• . :«.'i ,--^w' „••• <«sr*«^^^53^^»fc»^|^«ot-'us:ci WEBER, Ibid. FIG. 27. — Sanctuary. Surrounding wall on the north-west. rebut such an hypothesis. In the first place, the fastness would have been very far removed from human habitation ; in the 54 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. second place, the wall lacks the stoutness of that which crowns the ridge above the Tantaleis tomb, for nowhere is it more than i m. 20 c. thick ; finally, there is no ditch, and it would have opposed a feeble barrier to the assailants. On the other hand, it harmonizes with our conception of a wall, the function of which was to enclose a given space adjoining a sanctuary ; investing it with the character of a re/xcj/os, consecrated ground. How are we to explain, on the theory of a fortified place, the existence of the inner chamber scooped out of the solid rock with so much care ? In what way could it have helped the defence ? It is neither a silo nor a cistern. Neither is it a tomb ; for both it and the chamber it contains are far beyond the usual dimensions — which hardly vary — of a mortuary oven, i.e. an oven- shaped tomb. Then, too, the walls bear no marks of having supported a roof; and we can scarcely conceive the possibility that the dead were left to themselves in the open.1 Unaccountable as this would have been elsewhere, it would have been passing strange in this region, where hard by existed tombs with circular base ; that is to say, the well-attested type of the tribe long settled here. Nor can we conceive that a primitive race would have laboriously excavated a spacious and well-enclosed area around a single tomb. Setting aside similar explanations, the only possible conjec- ture left to us is that of a very ancient temple, with niche (the chamber) reserved for the symbol or the image of the deity worshipped in this "high place." By the light of what we know of the local cults, this deity can be no other than Cybele, enthroned among these hills. It is not to be supposed for a single moment that a statue was set up in this trench ; but, as at Pessinus, it was doubtless a rude stone of peculiar shape. The arrangement of the sanctuary being considered, would point to an age when no statues were known, save colossal figures in high relief, cut in the rock, from which they were as yet unable to free themselves. In this hypothesis the general dispositions fall into place of their own accord, and become as clear as daylight. The area corresponded to those rude stone circles we have studied in Syria ; within its enclosure the crowd of the faithful gathered themselves to celebrate 1 M. Ramsay is inclined to see a fortress, which in the Greek period was already in a ruinous state, but continued to be visited for the sake of its sanctuary (Newly discovered Sites, p. 73). SlPYLUS AND ITS MONUMENTS. 55 their public rites.1 The two rocky ledges at either end of the ridge overhanging the courts were as two gigantic altars on which sacrifices were offered in the light of day, coram fopulo. As to the bcetylus, the object of such homage, its rocky frame and double wall were sufficient protection against the weather, and, owing to the narrow entrance, the vast majority of the vulgar throng could be kept out, and none but the select few allowed to enter. Was this the " Hieron of Mother Plastene," specified by Pausanias, and due to the early settlers on Sipylus, the same which the Greek colonists of Smyrna continued to surround with religious awe ? In that case we must believe the report that the highest summit of the lamanlar-Dagh, northward of it, was called the "throne of Pelops."2 One of the faces of this particular peak towards the apex is broken off, and forms a ledge with a far-off resemblance to a gigantic seat. Its appellation was due to its peculiar shape, which was likely to strike the fancy of a primitive people ; instances of which are to be found all over the world. Thus in many a French district are hills popularly nicknamed Chaises de Gargantua? Not to omit any item on this side of Sipylus, it remains to notice two fragments of fortified enclosures. One is found eastward of the necropolis which contains the Tantaleis tomb, on the lowest spur of the mountain, but close to it. It covers a much larger area than the citadel, and has its angles protected by round towers. To be brief, examination of the sites and of the walls leads to the conclusion that we are confronted by the Acropolis of the Smyrna of Homer.4 The second enceinte is found on the road which goes across the Belcaive Pass, along the valleys of the Nif Chai and the Hermus, beyond the Sipylus barrier. It is the old road which from the remotest antiquity was followed by the inland trade of Smyrna, down to the opening of the railway (Fig. 7). North of the pass rises a conical hill, isolated from the mountain range on the south, and thus rendered a conspicuous object from every point of the Bournabat plain. On the summit are distinct traces of old 1 With regard to the Syrian b&moth, see Hist, of Art, torn. iv. ch. v. s. 2. 2 Consult WEBER, Le Sipylos, pp. 30, 31. He remarks that the monuments referred to by Pausanias are all near the old road, which from Cordelio runs across the lamanlar-Dagh to Menemen in the Hermus valley, and is still used by the natives when the country is flooded. 8 Arthur's Seat, near Edinburgh, and many more will occur to the reader. — TRS. * WEBER, loc. cit., pp. 25, 26, Plate I. 56 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. walls, obviously remains of an ancient city and of its stronghold.1 Some few yards below, eastward, is an extensive plateau, begirt by a wall. Then about midway up the hill, between two rocky ridges which descend towards the Turkish cafe" (Belcaive), a wall 6 m. 50 c. thick, and here and there from 2 m. to 3 m. high, runs for about 50 m. with direction from north-west to south-west. Like the Acropolis of the lamanlar-Dagh, its style of masonry exhibits great variety. Certain blocks left in the rough are very irregular ; elsewhere the courses are nearly horizontal, set with dressed stones by no means of uniform calibre ; nevertheless, the prevailing system is still polygonal. The rock was cut in places, and abutting on the wall is a circular ruin in which M. Weber recognizes a tumulus. " Fragments of pottery strew the ground ; most are plain red with- out ornament, and not a few are of fine black ware, like ancient Greek vases, with here and there a bit of archaic make." 2 From the day when the tribe settled here began to build the little town whose harbour is now covered by the Bournabat level, they must have been alive to the importance of closing the pass through which alone, by following the course of the Hermus, the enemy could descend upon them. Part of the population, there- fore, occupied a post within easy reach of the plain and the slopes proper to cultivation, whence the defile could be easily guarded. A situation offering so many advantages must have tempted Greek colonists — who probably superseded the primitive settlers — to occupy the site and make use of the means of defence erected by former generations, whose name had passed out of men's memory. The second group of the early monuments of Sipylus is found on its northern slope, in the Manissa-Dagh, eastward of the old site of Magnesia. Scholars had surmised that the race which, whilst cultivating the fertile plain of the Hermus, had its places of worship, its shelters, and tombs in the depths of the mountain, above or at the base of its formidable escarp, had probably left other traces of its activity in the neighbourhood of the colossal statue of their famous goddess Cybele. And this expectation recent researches have fully realized. As you leave Manissa, coasting Sipylus up to the head of the valley, on some six hundred yards beyond the gigantic statue of Cybele, you suddenly come upon a narrow gorge, flanked by 1 RAMSAY, Newly discovered Sites, etc., pp. 63-68 ; WEBER, Le Sipylos, pp. 1 14, 115. 2 Ramsay, loc. cit. SlPYLUS AND ITS MONUMENTS. 57 vertical walls about 150 m. high (Fig. 28). About the middle of the gorge juts out a kind of spur with very precipitous rugged sides, called by the natives larik Kaia (Twisted Stone), which, they tell you, bears on its summit the ruins of an old castle, Palaeo Kastro. Of late years travellers have frequently succeeded in getting to the top of the bare cliff, a performance which requires elasticity of limb and a steady head ; for, says Professor Sayce, you have to climb up, catching now at a projecting stone, now at some bush growing in the cleft of the rock. It appears that in olden times a path, wide enough for a mule, partly cut in the living rock, partly supported by artificial walls which were carried across r<;;,.c,; '<-. .. r \) FIG. 28. — Topographic sketch of northern slope of Sipylus, east of Magnesia. the chasm, led to the castle. Though it cannot now be used, it may still be traced in places " half hidden under a growth of myrtles and stones." A little further a grotto, 10 m. deep, is sighted, whose opening has been enlarged by human agency. Then comes a gateway, one of whose side posts was built and the other hewn in the rock — doubtless a sentry-box which served to guard and close the path. Presently, rising straight before you, is a rock which no sure-footed animal, let alone man, could possibly climb. But as you turn the corner there appears a split in the stone, which in Switzerland would be called a " chimney," and into this you disappear along with your guide. After feeling your way about for a few minutes you suddenly emerge on the upper ridge, now only accessible through this passage. A stair- case, partly destroyed by a huge boulder which broke away from the cliff above, but of which steps may be seen hidden away under HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. the brushwood, formerly led to the platform. It is an elongated plateau, 150 m. by 25 m., with a steep declivity; its highest point is 370 m. above sea-level, and its lowest 325 m., yielding a difference of 45 m. (Fig. 29). The site looks almost too forbidding for human habitation ; nevertheless five or six cisterns, bottle-shaped, are met with, along with remains of houses in stages, on to the very brim of this thin, dizzy ridge. Thanks to the incline of the ground, the rocky mass was cut away in such a fashion that only the side and back walls, and sometimes the partitions between one apartment and another, were left adhering to the soil (Figs. 30, 31). The fa9ade, now disappeared, was artificial, and must have been constructed with adobes and stone chips; for nowhere do we find blocks of a certain calibre, real prepared stones. On the other hand, burnt tiles are not rare ; some are quite plain, others of a more complicated make served to cover the joints, thus imply- ing that a certain degree of care was bestowed upon the roof. The number of these dwellings, connected one with the other by short flights of steps, Is computed at twenty-five. To the rear of the uppermost a rectangular excavation, i m. 10 c. by i m. 55 c., by i m. 30 c. deep, has been cut in the living rock. Its faces are finely polished (Figs. 32, 33). M. Humann, who was the first to describe this tiny, quaint Acropolis, is inclined to re- cognize it as the throne of Pelops, which used to be shown on the summit of the hill above the Hieron of Mother Plastene.1 1 Our description is abridged from M. HUMANN'S Ein Ausflug in den Sipylos, p. 10, of which a new illustrated edition has just appeared, entitled Die Tania- losburg mittheilungen, 1888. To Dr. Fabricius of Berlin we are indebted for Figs. 28, 29, 30, 33, as well as a discursive letter upon larik Kai'a, which he visited in FIG. 29. — Topographic sketch. Dr. Fabricius. After SlPYLUS AND ITS MONUMENTS. 59 What tends to give colouring to this hypothesis is the fact that on the edge of the plain, near the entrance to this narrow pass, recent excava- tions have brought to light the site of a temple of this goddess, where she was ad- dressed by the name of ~MtjTrjp that to say, the / FIG. 30. — Plan of houses. After Dr. Fabricius. s very title given her by Pausanias.1 Striking though this may be as a coincidence, it fails to carry weight with it. In the first place, the feeble salience of the rock which, according to him, was held as the seat of the great ancestor, was not visible from below. In the second place, even when the path was in its prime, the difficulty of ascent was too serious a drawback to have tempted many people making the experiment. Obviously the throne of Pelops was a conspicuous feature in the 1885. Consult also WEBER, Le Sipylos, pp. 118, 119, and Prof. RAMSAY, Sipylos and Cybele, pp. 35-37. 1 The name of IIAao-T^v^, under which this goddess was worshipped here, occurs in ancient manuscripts. But as neither inscriptions nor coins have it, Sichelis, Din- dorf, and after him Schubert, took upon themselves to replace IlXaon/vj; by ITAaKiav?/. It is now universally acknowledged that the manuscripts were correct, an example which should warn editors to pause ere they tamper with ancient texts ; notably in relation to proper names and local epithets which, though unknown to fame, were none the less current in the districts where they are found HXaKiavTj was a sur- name of Cybele which obtained in the Troad. The temple in question is said to be about an hour eastward of Magnesia, e.g. hard by the statue of the goddess. On its site several bas-reliefs of a votive character have been discovered, represent- ing a woman accompanied by lions, in which it is not difficult to recognize Cybele. On one of the sculptures appears the following inscription, published in the Bulletin de Correspondence hellenique, 1887, p. 300 : — MHTPOAOPA AHOAAA Miprpo&opa 'AiroXXZ MHTPI HAA2THNHI ^rpl UXao-Trjvfj EYXHN. fixnv- Another inscription, in very good preservation, mentions the temple in which the votive monuments in question were deposited, along with one Apollonius Skitalas, son of Alexander, who is said to have built or rather repaired it What is wanted here is a squeeze, so as to learn whether the restoration dates from the Seleucidas or the Roman empire. 6o HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. view, with some kind of resemblance to a seat, upon which popular FlG. 31. — Rock-cut dwellings. From Ch. Humann. FIG. 32. — Niche hollowed in the rock. From a photograph of Charles Humann. fancy had fastened, as it had for the rock which recalled to those in the humour for it the sitting form of a woman "grieving because SlPYLUS AND ITS MONUMENTS. 6l her children were not." We rather incline to believe, with Dr. Fabricius, that this was a vedette, whence the watch, comfortably sheltered behind the cliff, had a full view of the path from its first winding up the steep side of the hill.1 We have not seen the ruins specified by Humann. Bearing in mind, however, the straits to which the Mussulman conquest reduced the populations of Asia Minor, we should be tempted to think that a village, almost as inaccessible as an eyrie, might, after all, date from the Byzantine rule, but for the fact that M. Humann seems to have no misgivings as to the high antiquity of these remains. Needless to add that the avowed opinion of so experienced an explorer of the Asiatic peninsula is entitled to serious consideration.2 In its favour are those cisterns and domestic dwellings excavated in the living rock, together with the kind of para- pet, i m. high, obtained in the rocky mass by the same process, which is visible on many a point along the edge of the precipice.3 Similar struc- tures, reserved for the most part in the cliff upholding them, have struck all travellers who have seen them With the Strong1 resemblance they 3 . * bear to those on the Pnix at Athens. Such constructions (we have adduced and shall yet adduce numerous instances) were of long standing, and lasted many centuries with the older inhabitants of these provinces, until a more advanced culture caused them to adopt a more convenient style.4 Our leanings are all for considering this elevated site as the Phrygian Acropolis, where the population of the town below could find temporary shelter whenever a sudden panic overtook 1 M. Fabricius admits the possibility that the term "throne of Pelops," under which the vedette is popularly known, may be due to a late period. 2 MM. Ramsay and Fabricius are equally positive on the subject. 8 The detail is due to M. Ramsay, loc. cit., p. 36. 4 M. RAMSAY (Sipylos and Cybele) states that, besides multitudinous pieces of plain red ware, he picked up a fragment of black pottery, recalling Greek vases. No conclusion, however, can be reached from a single piece of this kind. In the early stage of Hellenic civilization the village may have been inhabited by woodmen or other colonists who supported themselves from the land produce. v. . 33- — Niche hollowed in the rock. Longitudinal section. After Dr. Fa- bricius. 62 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. them. The town in question may have been Tantalis, which, according to Pliny, preceded Magnesia, and was destroyed in one FIG. 34. — Tomb hollowed in the rock, near Magnesia. Perspective view. HUMANN, Ausflug, Fig. I. of those seismic convulsions of frequent occurrence along the coast.1 The appalling earthquake of 1880 is vividly remembered by the Smyrnians, when broad masses of the mountain, being loosened, rolled down into the plain, with trees and crops adhering. In like manner Tantalis was buried in Lake Salae (now a pond at the entrance of the FIG. 35.— Tomb near Magnesia. Plan. HUMANN, Ausflug, Fig. 3. sg Jea(Jma tO 1 M. HUMANN (Ausflug, etc., p. 7) does not seem to be aware that the tomb under notice was published before him by STEWART, Ancient Monuments, Plate II. The drawing of the latter, however, is so imperfect as to be worthless for the purposes of science. Weber's sketches (Trots tombeaux archdiques de Phocee, pp. SlPYLUS AND ITS MONUMENTS. the fortress), whose waters reflected the ruinous walls of the antique city. To the people who preceded the first Greek colonists on Hermus (founders of Magnesia) should likewise be attributed a funereal monument, met with about four hundred yards east of the ravine (Fig. 34). It is known in the country as the tomb of St. Charalambe, and is entirely scooped out of the living rock, in a talus which dips to the south-west at an angle of forty- five degrees. In this ledge of rocks was first sunk a broad staircase open to the sky, whose lower steps are hidden under accumulated earth. It led to a platform, in the centre of which a two-stepped land- ing has been reserved. The topmost step is level with a passage which gives access to a first chamber, followed by another corridor and a smaller c h a m b e r (Figs. 36). 35. 10 Ml> FIG. 36. — Tomb near Magnesia. Longitudinal section. HUMANN, Ausflug, Fig. 2. The ceiling of both apartments is slightly arched, its height diminishing from front to back, and the result is a somewhat oven- like aspect (Fig. 37). The two doorways are not on the same axis ; that of the inner is a little to the west as regards the exterior opening. There are no signs of troughs or stone couches, but along the western wall, a little above the ground, runs a double ledge, upon which rested the heads of the corpses laid out on the 136-138, Figs. 11-15) agree in all essentials with M. Humann's illustrations. See also RAMSAY, Sipylos and Cybele, p. 37. 64 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. floor of the mortuary chamber. The ledge is non-existent on the opposite wall. About the exterior doorway no trace of hinges or frame was found. The passage must have been closed by a heavy slab rolled up against the open- ing, which may have been broken in early days by treasure-seekers. The inner work is rudimentary enough. The stone-cutters FIG. 37.— Tomb near Mag- reserved all their thought and care to nesia. Transverse section. . ' WEBER, Trois tombeaux, smoothing and polishing the outer faces ; this they did so well and thoroughly as to leave no mark of the chisel. Above, the hypogee table, 9 m. 50 c. by 5 m. 60 c., was levelled out, with a deep groove which separates it from the stony mass by which it is enframed (Fig. 38). The advantages of a similar arrangement are twofold : despite its simplicity it in- vests the whole with a monumental aspect, whilst it serves to iso- late the tomb, and to guard it as well. The rain water that falls on the surface of the rock is thus collected in a double gutter and dis- charged on either side some distance in front. Thanks to this precau- tionary measure, the fa£ade is unimpaired, and looks almost as FIG. 38.— Tomb near Magnesia. Horizontal projection of fresh as if Carved but upper part. H u MANN. Ausflu?. Fig. <;. i -NT i yesterday. Neverthe- less not one among the explorers who have studied this hypogee hesitates in assigning to it a remote antiquity. There is no inscrip- tion, nor the slightest sign of mouldings which might indicate a •T SlPYLUS AND ITS MONUMENTS. Greek origin ; the processes resorted to for its erection are identical with those met with in the Phrygian tombs of the Rhyndacus and the Sangarius valleys. Here, too, the effort to isolate the grave- chambers and provide a hollow space, more or less complete, between it and the mass of stone in which it has been hollowed, is occasionally seen. For the rest, the guiding principle and the data are exactly similar ; although the frontispiece has been given a fixed and sharply defined shape, it none the less preserves a solid and severe rusticity, in perfect accord with the grand plans of the mountain, and the broken lines of the native rock which covers and enframes it. Two other tombs, lately discovered, should be added FIG. 39. — Tomb near Phocaea. WEBER, Trots tombeaux, Fig. 6. to complete the number of monuments found in the region of Hermus. They are said to be old, due, perhaps, to the age which preceded the birth of the Greek cities.1 One, called by the Turks Sheitan Haman (the Devil's Bath), is hard by Phocaea ; and the other, which bears the Greek name of I Pelekiti, is about two hours' walk eastward of the ancient ruins of the same city, near the road which leads to Menenem. There is nothing remarkable about the first. Like the Charalambe tomb, it consists of two chambers, but in the floor of the inner apartment was hollowed a grave in the form of a trough.2 The other is somewhat curious.3 The im- 1 WEBER, Trois tombeaux, etc., pp. 129-136. 2 See Weber's plan, sections and elevations. 8 M. Solomon Reinach informs me that the above tomb was published as far back as 1831, in i vol. i8mo, now very rare, entitled Fragments (fun Voyage en Italic, en Grhe, et en Asie, 1829-1830, par Gautier d'Arc, Consul de France. VOL. i. «•' 66 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. pression it produces is that of a small country church with a square tower (Fig. 39). Thus, upon a parallelepiped base, 8m. 80 c. by 6 m. 25 c. by 2 m. 40 c. high, have been cut four grades which were ascend- ed on the eastern side ; and on these, again was left a cubical block, i m. 90 c. in height, surmounted by two low steps. The FIG. 40. — Tomb near Phocsea. Plan. WEBER, Trots tombeaux, Fig. 7. monument did not end here, for on the top appear marks as of some object torn off. This our illustration, although on a reduced scale, shows very distinctly. Was the crowning member orna- mental, a "stepped " pyramid, rosette, or symbolic device, like the phallus of the tombs around Bour- nabat ? To this question no answer can be given, for the breaking off has been too cleanly done to admit even of conjecture. But if the terminal form is sadly to seek, the internal dispositions FIG. 41. — Tomb near Phocaea. Longitudinal section. WEBER, Trois tombeauxt Fig. 8. The author was a member of the Socie'te Royale des Antiquaires, a fact which he does not seem to have remembered save in this single instance, his short narrative being wholly taken up with picturesque and sprightly anecdotes of a more or less personal character. SlPYLUS AND ITS MONUMENTS. 67 are very well preserved (Figs. 40, 41). A door leading to a kind of small ante-room opens in the northern wall, F, whence the chambered grave, properly so called, is entered. The ceilings are flat, and the grave is a trough cut in the floor, H. As at Charalambe here also, the skill of the artist was chiefly directed towards the exterior ; be it in polishing the rock surface around the base, cutting grooves on the north and south sides, i, j, for the outflow of the water, or piercing the small circular tank, K, in one of the corners. The north, south, and west faces are quite plain. On the other hand, the eastern face is profusely decorated : first, by an elongated window-shaped niche, divided into four compartments ; then a cornice with ornamental ancone slightly salient beyond the rocky wall. On this side the pyramidal base of the cubical block has no steps. Despite these irregularities, in its pristine state, the tomb from its very quaint appearance was not wanting in attractiveness. When we drew up our list of the older monuments of Sipylus, or at least of the most noteworthy, nothing was said about sculpture : not because the art for that period was unrepresented, since even at the present hour are works of the highest interest, such as the bas-reliefs of Sesostris, described by Herodotus, and the Cybele of Mount Codine, seen by Pausanias ; but because the inscrip- tions about these images prove that they were executed in the period preceding the introduction of letters derived from the Phoenician alphabet, when characters akin to the Hamathite obtained throughout Asia Minor. Hence we were obliged to class the figures under notice with the series of monuments which, for want of a better name, we have termed Hittite. To these sculptures we have nothing to add, except a bust discovered by M. Spiegelthal near the village of Bouja, situated in a mountain eastward of Smyrna, called Tashtali.1 His description, which we borrow, was written before the mutilation of the monument by the fanatic natives. M. Dennis, her Majesty's Consul at Smyrna, had it removed by night so as to save it from further dilapidation, and secretly despatched to the British Museum in 1869. To quote from the German explorer : as you ascend the path leading to the alpine village of Bouja you pass a sinking of some 8 to lorn, deep, and loom, long, surrounded by a wall composed 1 A. MARTIN, Trois Monuments des environs de Smyrne, left re a M. G. Perrol (Revue Arche., Nouvelle Se'rie, torn. xxxi. pp. 321-330). 68 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. of stone blocks piled one upon the other without cement. At one end of the depression, pierced in the solid rock, is a kind of arcade which opens into a grotto extending far into the depths of the mountain, but which is choked up by the falling away of the calcareous stone. On either side of the grotto are stone seats, finely polished. Externally, right and left of the doorway, runs a gallery one metre wide, which seems to have been made to facilitate the duty of the watch set to guard the cavern. The grotto was FlG. 42. — Rock--cut bust. Drawn by A. Martin. originally entered by a staircase, the lower steps of which are now buried under rubbish, which has gathered to a considerable height in the hollow. It is possible that a clean sweep of the detritus would result in curious finds. Every detail about the grotto indicates that it was formerly a fane. The Wall planted in a hollow is assuredly not a defensive wall ; whilst the rock-cut benches in- side the grotto, and in especial the bust which only a few years ago (1868) l stood over the doorway (Fig. 42), are as unlike what we should expect to find around a fortified enclosure as can well be 1 WEBER (I.e Sipylos, p. 113) says, "Une grotte se trouvait au dessus de la tete."— TRS. SlPYLUS AND ITS MONUMENTS. 69 imagined. The sculpture, i m. 500. by 60 c., appeared upon a bold salience of the rock. The head looks full face, with flat nose, low retreating forehead, rounded chin, elongated eyes raised at the outer extremities. The hands meet in front ; a necklace of large beads is around the neck. The face is quite smooth, and without a trace of beard. Horns appear on either side of the cheeks where ears should have been, recalling the horns of Ammon. The position of the figure over the doorway of a sacred place is conclusive evidence of its being the image of a deity. By what name are we to address him ? Were the locality on the mainland of Greece, we could confidently say that a subterraneous fane was dedicated to no other than Pan or the Nymphs. Here, however, we are in the realm of that Cybele who maintained her sway over Sipylus and the hilly tract which it overshadows with its mighty crown to the latest times. It may be urged that a smooth face is no sure sign of sex, since it may with equal propriety belong to a youth as to a woman ; whilst horns, as a rule, are associated with gods. Ammon, Hercules, personified rivers. But may not horns, as symbols of strength, have been now and again attributed to a goddess, the embodiment of endless creative force, the tamer of wild beasts whom she obliged to draw her chariot ? And does not the figure whose body is lost in the depth of the cliff" admirably lend itself to represent the Divine Being so intimately allied with the mountain he inhabited as to be called r) [ATJrrjp opeua, the mother of the mountain ? This is not the place for attempting even a conjecture as to the date of the monuments we have passed in review. The time, if it should ever come, will be after we have duly studied Phrygia properly so called, where the Phrygian race had, if not its capital- it never owned a place deserving of the title — at least its political and religious centre, its principal sanctuaries and royal necropoles. On the upper course of the Sangarius, monuments are far more numerous ; they have, if we may so speak, a first beginning of civil life written upon them, for they bear inscriptions which, despite obscurities, permit us to name with absolute certainty the people who made them, and to fix a proximate date to them. On our home journey from our exploring quest, we shall feel qualified to add to the weight of the hypothesis suggested to us by historical and mythical data ; basing it upon resemblances in style, mode of workmanship, and general dispositions. We shall bound over the ;o HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. vast tracts which as yet have yielded no monuments of ancient date, on to the uplands where the various races which first peopled Asia Minor maintained their customs, traditions, and cults against the encroaching genius of Hellas. ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PHRYGIA PROPER. It is doubtful whether Asia Minor, rich throughout in beautiful sites and grand scenery, can offer a corner which in picturesque- ness will compare with that which may be seen on the western side of the Sangarius, in the neighbourhood of Pessinus, where Strabo informs us (XII. v. 3) that in his day the inhabitants still preserved the memory of their kings. The region in which the relics connected with these old chiefs are found lies about two days' journey to the south-east of Koutahia, a place generally chosen as the starting-point of their journey by travellers. Leaving the town, the way leads across a white dusty plain, but sundown brings you to the low hills, with clustering pines, in advance of the mountains. Here a valley is entered, and a gentle though continuous ascent brings you to the village of Kumbet, the second station after Koutahia, situated 150 m. above the latter.1 The tedium of the journey is tempered by the beauty of the landscape, which improves with every hour ; the country is finely undulated, the hill-tops well timbered, and pines, the great tree of this district, are so artistically grouped along the slopes — where, despite a general dearth of water, great herds find an abundance of grass down to June — as to suggest English scenery. The luruk tribe, amidst which we found nightly shelter, owned no fewer than a thousand heads of horned cattle. In summer these semi-nomadic shepherds camp out in egg-shaped tents made of felt, or in shanties built of unsquared timber. The framing is put together without clamps or pins ; the beams for the walls are laid side by side as close as possible, and made to project and overlap each other at the four corners. To keep them in place the under beams are mortised to about half their thickness. The roof consists likewise of a rude frame of unsquared beams, horizontally placed at some distance from each 1 M. E. Guillaume, who was my travelling companion on the occasion, gives the following barometric measurement : Koutahia, 920 m. above sea level ; Kumbet, 1060 m. ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PHRYGIA PROPER. 71 other and built up so as to form a curvilinear skeleton ; upon this are laid square posts as compactly as they can be laid (Figs. 43, 44). 1 The configuration of the soil is very peculiar ; for it is neither of the nature of the lowlands, nor can it be called alpine. The whole region from Kumbet to Seid el-Ghazi, Khosrev Pasha Khan, and Eski Kara Hissar, is a succes- sion of valleys with flat flooring, from 100 to i coo m. wide, dip- ping with slight varia- tions from north to south. The valleys are separated one from the other by thick formations of rocky masses, 40 to 50 m. in height ; now sloping upwards to a narrow ridge, now terminating in table- lands of some ex- /T^. x ' &*&%&&&#& — tent (Fig. 45). By reason of the crumbling away of the rock above, their base is a chaotic wilderness of boulders heaped up in confusion FIG, 43. — Wooden house near Kumbet. M. E. Guillaume. After FIG, 44. — Wooden hut near Kumbet. After M. E Guillaume. to a considerable height. The ground is undulating throughout, and the rocks rise up into low hills, connected with, albeit they do not belong to, the snow-capped mountains extending far away. Trees of fine growth spring out of the clefts of the rocks. Here 1 Vitruvius, in his chapter entitled " Origin of Domestic Architecture," describes this mode of building of general acceptance in Asia Minor, notably at Colchis, in the following words : — "Four sets of trees, two in each set, of the length required for the width of the house, are laid parallel to each other on the ground. They are met contrariwise at the extremities by other trees, whose length is equal to the space between the horizontal trunks, so as to form a kind of rough frame. This is then placed upon the perpendicular beams, which form the corners of the house and serve as supporting pillars. Planks are laid across as near to each other as they can be laid," etc. (II. i. 4). In reality the system has always been in vogue wherever a plentiful supply of timber is to be had ; for example, in Lycia and towards the Euxine. HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. and there are volcanic cones broken up into a thousand fan- tastic forms, in strong contrast with the plain whence they shoot up. The formation is a coarse conglomerate, yellowish in colour, nowhere very hard, yet varying considerably in firmness and density.1 The salt lakes, and generally the geological forma- tion of the soil, clearly indicate that the central plateau emerged from an inland sea. The waters, raised by successive volcanic efforts, were hemmed in on all sides by a double and triple belt of massive lofty ridges, which they had slowly to under- mine and pierce, ere they found an outlet into the oceans sur- FIG. 45. — General view of Kumbet.2 rounding the peninsula. At first the waters that escaped from the rocky walls were nothing but rivulets ; but ere long they gathered themselves into impetuous streams, as they descended the broad grades of the elevated tableland towards the Euxine and the Mediterranean. During their course they often helped to fill lakes that had suddenly emerged and as suddenly disappeared, in one of those upheavals which helped to build up the plateau, 1 A small fragment of the Midas rock has been handed to me by Professor Ramsay. I had it analyzed by M. Munier-Chalmas, who returned it with the following note : — " The stone I examined is the result of volcanic agency in the Miocene or Pliocene period. It is a rhyolithic tufa, with fragments of pumice and obsidian. The microscope reveals the presence of broken crystals of quartz, orthose, oligoclase, and amphibole, sprinkled in the shapeless mass ; along with a fragment of an older rock or micaceous schist with blue crystals." 2 The above sketch is by M. Tomakieviez, from a photograph of M. Gustave Fougeres, of the French School at Athens. It faces the tomb we study and represent a little further on. ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PHRYGIA PROPER. 73 and caused that part of Phrygia which is wholly formed of irrup- tive rocks, to be called Phrygia Combusta. During these periods, which may be counted by thousands of years, the many streams which descend from these heights carved a tortuous bed around the more friable rocks, the eddy acting as battering-ram in shaping them into every possible contortion of lofty pinnacle and narrow promontories, rending their flanks into dark caves, deep crevices, and fissures, or polishing the hard-grained stone into vertical walls.1 Strolling about the neighbourhood of Seid el-Ghazi (ancient Nacoleia) I was forcibly reminded of the Forest of Fontainebleau, whoseconfiguration science explains as likewisedue to fluvial energy. Before the primitive inhabitants were provided, as they are at the present day, with forged iron, they could not resist the temptation of excavating their houses into the friable rock they had everywhere at hand. Moreover, even when they had tools with which they could rapidly fell and cut up pines of the required length and size, they continued to take shelter, at least in the winter months, in stone habitations hollowed in the depth of the hill, or those isolated rocks which shoot up on many a point of the valley. The winters are cold here ; for, though Kumbet is but 150 metres above the level of the surrounding plain, it is more than 1000 metres above the sea. At such an altitude the nights are fresh, nay, cold throughout the year. Thus, at 6 a.m. on the 1 2th of June, the thermometer marked six degrees above zero; and albeit the time was summer, we were often kept awake in our wooden huts, by the sharp frosty air, and had to take in turn feeding the fire through the night. Dwellings like these are of a certainty picturesque, but they are positively no protection against the wind, and very little against the rain, which latter penetrates through chinks and fissures large enough for the hand to get through. Nor was it much better when we tried to stop the gaps with straw and clay, for these were presently turned into mud and washed down inside by the driving rain, whilst the chaff, left to itself, was taken up by the wind and tossed about our faces. As for the wraps and blankets we put up before the apertures, they 1 There was some uncertainty about the name of the site occupied by Seid el-Ghazi. Prymnessus, whose coins during the Roman domination bear the effigy of Midas, was proposed. Thejesearches of Professor Ramsay in 1884 have definitely settled the question. " Prymnessus," he writes, " was at Seulun, three miles south-east of Afium Kara Hissar," on the postal road which runs from this city to Konieh. 74 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. only made matters worse, in that they swelled like so many bladders and blew out into the middle of the room, discharging a veritable hurricane about us. In conditions such as these, it is no wonder that, whilst living in forests, habits which seem to suit regions where timber fails should have persisted for centuries. Writing of the usages in vogue among the Phrygians, Vitruvius employs terms which clearly indicate that the district he has in view is Phrygia Combusta, which joins on Lycaonia, where trees are only seen in gardens.1 And, indeed, on this side, in the territory of Urgub, Kumbet, and Utch Hissar, the faces of the tufaceous rocks are entirely honeycombed with artificial grottoes.2 That some were tombs is rendered indubitable by the inscriptions which accom- pany them ; and it seems no less certain that a vast majority were appropriated to domestic and religious uses, even as they are at the present day. Troglodyte dwellings, it should be remembered, are too deeply rooted in the habits of the people ever to have been out of fashion. Thus, towards the northern extremity of the rock upon which the village is perched, are remains of a spacious mansion, of which a plan was made by Professor Ramsay (Fig. 46). The foundation walls, mostly reserved in the thickness of the mass, are still two and three metres in height. But where the rock failed, in front, recourse was had to masonry set in courses of squared units. Professor Ramsay recognizes the women's quarter in a block of buildings entered by a long winding passage, H, and separated from the rest of the habitation. He finds a bed- room, c, dressing-room, E, and bath-room, F. The floor of the latter is paved with a different stone, and shows a small duct cut through the rocky wall to carry off used water, G.3 The mansion served as 1 II. i. 5 : " Phryges vero, qui campestribus locis sunt habitantes, propter inopiam silvarum egentes materia eligunt tumulos naturales, eosque'medios fossura distinentes et itinera perfodientes dilatant spatia quantum natura loci patitur." 2 With regard to these Troglodyte hamlets, see Hist, of Art, torn. iv. Fig. 389 ; and MORDTMANN, Die Troglodyten von Cappadoden (Mem. zum Akademien Munchen, 1859). Strabo reports that in his time native tribes in the Taurus range still lived in caves and grottoes (XII. vi. 5). We observed similar caves at Beibazar and Istamos in the Sangarius basin. The hewing of these chambers is rendered easy by the loose texture of the stone. Thus at Martkhane, near Urgub, Earth slept in an apartment 25 feet long by 13 broad, and 10 high, which his host informed him had been cut in the space of thirty days by one single workman. 8 RAMSAY (Hell. Studies, x. p. 177) writes: "We enter the harem through the winding passage, H, and reach first the large women's sitting-room (A in his pla n ; ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PHRYGIA PROPER. 75 domestic dwelling until quite recently. During the Byzantine rule, the apartment D was apparently turned into a Christian chapel. The whole pile seems to have been inhabited by a Turkish agha, who rebuilt part of the walls with small stones and covered the & s FIG. 46. — Plan of rock-cut dwelling, Kumbet. From Professor Ramsay. whole with a coat of plaster. To him also should be ascribed the decoration over the mantelpieces, which Earth wrongly deemed c in Fig. 46), then the little bedroom, B (E in Fig. 46), and finally the bath-room, D" (F in the above figure). M. Perrot also makes the larger northern room, D, of the dv8/MDVTis a Christian chapel ; it is the smaller middle chamber below (marked E in Ramsay's plan) that has been used for that purpose. — TRS. 76 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. to be antique,1 but the fireplaces cut in the living rock must be old Phrygian work, A. It certainly is an interesting and somewhat rare phenomenon to find the mingling of the two styles of architecture thus employed simultaneously, the principle of which is so widely different ; the one using none but combustible materials, the other taking advantage of every salience in the earth's crust to excavate abodes for the dead and the living as well. The subterraneous house, as a rule, is only resorted to in localities where timber fails altogether, as in Egypt, but in especial in that Lycia whose sylvan scenes we shall ere long have occasion to visit,2 where, too, the co-existence of the two modes led to curious results. In order to invest the fa9ades of the hypogeia with monumental aspect, pieces of carpentry, mouldings akin to those cut in a wooden post, have been copied in stone. Shapes, therefore, which in the wooden house were organic members and formed an integral part of the construction, have been endowed with a purely decorative value. Nor are these the only items which have thus been turned from their natural use ; yet other instances of similar transpositions and adaptations are met with in this rock-cut architecture. From work done in the loom or with the needle, the Phrygian orna- mentist likewise borrowed the designs which served to fill the field of his frontispieces so as to ensure variety of aspect. The district in which occur the monuments whose main characteristics we have broadly sketched occupies but a narrow strip in Kiepert's excellent map. Eastward it follows the edge of a wooded tract, with Koutahia on the west, Seid el-Ghazi on the north, and Eski Hissar on the south. It corresponds to the ancient territory of two Phrygian towns of a certain importance, Nacoleia and Prymnessus, and is quite close to the first. We do not hear of Meros (which will be found near Kumbet on the map) until the time of the Eastern empire ; in the reign of Justinian it was a large borough with a bishopric. When we wrote our History of Art, no map of the canton had been published ; hence it was no easy matter to get a clear notion of the relative situation of the monuments from the verbal description of travellers. Pro- fessor Ramsay was good enough to place at my service drawings 1 The miserable ornament and modern woodwork about the chimney was accepted as old by the German traveller EARTH (Reise von Trapezunt, etc., p. 95). 8 Hist, of Art, torn. i. pp. 507-516 ; torn. v. book ix. ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PHRYGIA PROPER. 77 and observations taken on the spot, and afterwards to revise the topographical sketch made from them by M. Thuillier. Each tomb has been carefully numbered so as to enable the reader to determine approximately, at least, the place each occupies in the map (Fig. 47). A first glance at the sketch reveals the fact that if the tumuli under notice are scattered all over the place, they nevertheless form two principal groups : one towards the north-east around the PHRYGIAN NECROPOLES Near the Tomb of Midas. Topographic Sketch from the survey of Professor Ramsay. Scale : v^ FIG. 47. — Phrygian necropoles. Topographic sketch. Midas monument (9 in plan), and the other twenty miles to the south-west, near the village of Ayazeen. For convenience' sake, therefore, we shall follow Professor Ramsay and call them respec- tively the Midas necropolis and Ayazeen necropolis. The above appellation has no pretension to accuracy, and has no other merit than that of facilitating the finding of a particular tomb in either cemetery. The northern or Midas necropolis has been known since 1820, when it was visited by Leake, and subsequently by Texier, Stewart, Earth, Mordtmann, and finally by me. That of 7 8 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. Ayazeen was discovered by Professor Ramsay, from whom we have borrowed all we have to say about the tombs it contains. If the tract rendered famous by monuments which reveal an art remarkable for originality has no geographical frontiers by which it can be easily traced on the map, the characteristics it offers are sufficiently marked and distinct to enable the observer to single it out from the adjacent country. It consists throughout of volcanic formations, more or less friable, which favour and seem to invite excavations. The works suggested by the nature of the rock, far from being everywhere uniform, exhibit wonderful variety, whence we may surmise that many generations had a hand in these hypogeia. Nevertheless resemblances between those considered old, as against the comparatively modern, are sufficiently strong to warrant the conclusion that they were the outcome of one art — a national, or rather a local art — which in these secluded sylvan scenes was faithful to the forms and subjects it had started with. To these it clung with characteristic tenacity for generations, defending them against the seductive style and the nobler taste of the sons of Hellas. Nor is this all ; the exceptional importance which attaches to these monuments lies in the fact that they manifest numerous instances of the use of an alphabet and idiom that have left no traces outside this region. As was suspected by travellers who first came across these lovely picturesque valleys, there is every reason for believing that such inscriptions represent the writing and the language of the Phrygians, a people who, had they not put their seal wherever their chisel was allowed to play on these rocks, would have seemed to belong to the domain of fable rather than of sober history. FUNEREAL ARCHITECTURE. "The Phrygians," wrote Nicholas of Damascus, "do not bury their priests, but set them up upon stones ten cubits high."1 No instance has been found in Phrygia in support of this assertion. Arguing from analogy, and assuming, as we are inclined to do, identity of blood between the tribes that founded the common- wealths on Sipylus and the banks of the Sangarius, what we should expect to find here would be burial-places in the form of tumuli. The type, as a matter of fact, cannot be said to be unrepresented in Mediterranean Phrygia, where numerous remains of artificial 1 Frag. Hist. Grac., Miiller's edit, torn. iii. FUNEREAL ARCHITECTURE. 79 mounds have been traced.1 Professor Ramsay, in a letter to the Athenceum, dated December 27, 1884, thus describes the one specimen he was able to examine with some care : " The tumulus is bounded by a circle of square blocks, half imbedded in the ground, which have fallen from the top and sides of the mound. I was informed by a native that one of the stones had graven characters upon it, and with the help of four villagers, a pickaxe, and wooden poles to serve as levers, we succeeded in setting up the block, when it turned out that the signs were akin to the hieroglyphs of Cappadocia." 2 The tumulus in question is south of the village of Bey Keui, in the pass marked 28 in the map. The finding of Hittite characters in the bowels of a tumulus might be taken as conclusive evidence that cognate monuments met with in Phrygia are anterior to the time when its inhabitants elaborated an alphabet which they derived from the Phoenician. However remarkable the discovery may be, it would be rash to advance an opinion from one solitary instance, and it is well to wait until the remaining mounds shall have been examined. We may regret that the explorations were allowed to stop here, and that no attempt was made to find out whether such mounds contain chambered graves. However that may be, the fact remains that, speaking generally, tumuli in Phrygia form the exception, not the rule. If the first owners of the soil, the Syro- Cappadocians, or, after them, the early bands of Phrygo immigrants who occupied the district, made use of this mode of sepulture, the habit did not last. All Phrygian tombs are hypogeia. Of all the monuments in this district, the most famous is certainly that which since 1824 is known by archaeologists under the name of the Midas tomb3 (Fig. 48, 9 in map). Its size, 1 Hell. Studies, 1882, p. 18. 2 RAMSAY, Athenaum, p. 884. It seems strange that the author should never have published the inscription. 8 Leake brought the monument to the knowledge of the world in 1800. — TRS. See Professor Ramsay's observations in respect to our cuts, Figs. 48, 49. Whilst acknowledging that our general view of the Midas rock is far away the best that has been published, he still finds it inexact in some respects. The explanations he puts forward as to the character of the meander displayed on the Phrygian tombs are too long for reproduction, and we refer the reader to Hell. Studies, x. pp. 149- 156. Here more than ever the need is felt of having the image as understood by Professor Ramsay placed side by side with that which he criticises. Knowing the sureness of hand and the pains taken by M. Guillaume when at work, we are loth to believe his drawing faulty, as affirmed by Professor Ramsay. 8o HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. the singularity of its ornamentation, the mythical name of "Midas" written on the fa9ade, its situation at the head of the valley amidst picturesque rocks fringed with gloomy firs, have all helped to bring it out from among the rank and file sur- rounding it, which are either lost in the depths of plantations or buried out of sight in the clefts of the rock, a small aperture on the apex and an insignificant rude front being alone visible. The royal monument, on the other hand, has no trees to take from the proportions of its fine frontage (which starts from the ground, giving it an amplitude not to be seen anywhere else) and stupendous base of rock, 7 or 8m. high ; nothing, in fact, diverts the eye of the beholder from lasili Kaia (the Great Written Stone), as the native woodmen style it. Like a magnet, it has attracted and attracts every traveller who has visited or visits these parts ; it is the first, he wishes to see, and when he leaves it for a while, it is only that he may return to it, He makes it his head-quarters, the better to examine it. Our visit was in 1861. Solicitous as we were to push on to Ancyra, where a long and important work awaited us, we made all the same arrangements to spend the night in a neighbouring tomb, so as to devote another day to the monuments of the Midas necropolis. But Fate willed it otherwise ; this time in the guise of a heavy storm of rain and wind, which broke out during the night and did so much damage to our photographing apparatus, that it was rendered useless for the time. As the Midas plateau was not down in our programme, we did not feel justified in wasting the time requisite to take measurements, and make hand-sketches and photographs with a light camera of the tombs it contains. Reluctantly, therefore, and with heavy hearts, we set our faces towards our real goal, followed by the regret of not being able to tarry here for one week at least, so as to take exact measurements of the principal tombs, which even now have not yet been acquired to archaeology. Five and twenty years have gone by, and the sequel of the History of Art takes me back to these very wood- lands and picturesque rocks, that I may properly characterize and define the style and processes of Phrygian art from the remains it has left behind. Once again in my essayal approximately to date and classify the tombs met with in this region, the Midas rock, better than any other, will serve as starting-point and term ^ of comparison for tombs, the oldest of which may perhaps go >is iJiiiii \ & m '. • »>'••> AVV •'• : 'VvVMii \i • .>• • •• ;. ft. ; •''•:• / f A» ;%%1\ fe;W'-: VOL. I. FUNEREAL ARCHITECTURE. 83 back to the eighth century B.C., whilst the more recent may be coeval with Alexander and his immediate successors. The monument deserving of this high place of honour may be described as a sculptured frontispiece cut in the face of a vertical wall of tufa 20 m. high, bounded on one side by an immense chasm where the road passes, and on the other by rocky masses which close the ravine called Doghanlou Deresi (Hawk Valley). It is a rectangular table, n m. 74 c. by 12 m. 50 c., separated from the rough portions of the rock by a shallow groove, the crowning member being a very low triangular pediment. A device composed of a double volute, the centre of which has disappeared, appears above the tympanum. The remaining parts, including the ornament and the inscriptions, are in a marvellous state of preservation. The lettering on the left describes an oblique line on the virgin rock, almost parallel to the slope of the frontal ; that to the right runs from top to bottom in a vertical line on the outer edge of the upright. Finally, pierced in the face of the slab, is a false door or niche, framed by triple jambs with a slight inward slope, and in retreat one from the other, the effect of which is to deepen and narrow the opening towards the top — a contrivance taken up again by the builders of the Romanesque and Gothic style of architecture. The second lintel or architrave rests upon rectangular saliences or bracket-like shapes (Fig. 49). 1 If from the main and more striking lines we pass on to details, we shall find that the fagade is wholly covered with geometrical forms, either graven or in relief, be it on the flat pilasters, the horizontal fascia, under the coping of the roof, and even the field of the tympanum. A star-like pattern, composed of four lozenges whose centre is marked by a smaller lozenge, surrounds the frontispiece. Under the gable are, first a row of squares of larger calibre, then other two rows of smaller ones, placed edge-wise so 1 We have intentionally had the false door drawn on a larger scale than the rest of the monument, because it was inadequately figured in Texier's book, and from him reproduced in many works. The plate in question, however, is on the whole better than the vast majority to be found in his volume, and has but two inexactitudes : one is his having placed the vertical inscription on the virgin rock, when it should be on the outer edge of the jamb ; whilst his shadows are all too strong, giving a depth to the niche which it does not possess in reality. Again, there never was here a funereal bed, as shown in his sketch ; whilst the meander pattern right and left of the door widely differs from that traced by his pencil. 84 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. as to form what is technically called the saw device. The greater intricacy of the main design is more apparent than real, in that its elements are wholly rectilinear. It is a continuous meander, forming and limiting spaces of varying size and shape, which are occupied by rows of crosses and small elongated dots. The form, meanders and crosses have a relief of 13 c., and occupy the inner slab, which, as already stated, is n m. 74 c. in height, by 12 m. 55 c. in width.1 We do not vouch for the absolute accuracy of FIG. 49. — Monument of Midas. False door. Drawn by E. Guillaume. Exploration archeologique, Plate VI. measurements we had no time to verify ; but they cannot be far removed from reality. To the left of the facade, on the level, appears a small grotto roughly cut, i m. 60 c. wide, 75 c. deep, one side of which is i m. 35 c. and the other i m. 82 c. high. Over it is incised an inscription in large Phrygian letters, 30 c. high arid i c. deep, 1 Our figures are taken fromTfixiER, Description, torn. i. p. 154. A sketch of Sir C. Wilson, kindly forwarded to me by Professor Ramsay; gives the following measure- ments : — Width of sculptured slab, including pilasters, 16 m. 62 c. ; width of surface occupied by meander, 12 m. 39 c. ; height of the same* 12 m..i6 c. (the figure is obviously too high, for Sir Charles's sketch shows a greater difference between breadth and height than appears from his measurements) ; mean width of pilasters (they are not quite alike), 2m. 13 c. ; height of the whole, 21 m. FUNEREAL ARCHITECTURE. 85 and, like those on the frontispiece, should be read from left to right. This is not the place for attempting to unravel the meaning of these texts ; nevertheless, regard should be had to the upper- most and longer inscription graven on the native rock (Fig. i), as likely to be helpful in determining the nature of the monument itself. The prominent place it occupies, its length of line (13 m.), the size and clearness of the characters, each separated by a dot, so as to make confusion impossible ; finally, the issues involved in these alphabetical signs ; — everything combines to attract the eye and draw attention to it. Transliterated in Roman figures, it reads thus : " Ates arkaie Fais akenanola Fos midai la Faltei Fanaktei edaes." It is self-evident that the first word is the nominative singular of the radical atu, attn, the great Phrygian god, the Atys, whom classical writers represent as the inseparable companion of Cybele. The name seems to have enjoyed popular favour, for Herodotus (i. 34) tells us that a son of Croesus and an old king of Lydia (i. 71) were so called ; and Strabo writes that it was the official title of the high priest of Cybele at Pessinus.1 Discarding the next two words of doubtful reading, we come to the dative form of the familiar name of Midas ; those which follow, la Faltei and Fanaktei, being in the same case, are supposed to be his honorific or patronymic appellations. Curiously enough, if we drop the initial letter F of the second word — instances of which may be observed in cognate languages — we have the Greek dative oW/m, ai/afcret, from avag, prince. Edaes, on the other hand, is the third person of a verb, which in Phrygian probably represented an Indo-European root, signifying to establish — in Sanscrit da-dha-mi, to establish ; Greek, Ti-0e-/u ; German, stellen, stabilire, dtablir, poser? Hence the words known at present yield the following formula: "Atys . . . dedicated ... to king Midas" Mt'Sct . . . O.VCLKTL . . . 1 Hist, of Art, torn. iv. p. 659, n. 2 G. CURTIUS, Grundzuge der Griechischen, etc., 3rd edit., 1869, p. 238, No. 309. 3 For more details respecting the conjectures that may be adduced about the words still undeciphered, and the reasons for considering edaes as a third person of an aorist, see RAMSAY, Hist. Relat. of Phrygia and Cappadoda, pp. 29, 30. Professor Ramsay persists in considering the Midas monument as a funereal memorial, whilst we would rather attribute to it a commemorative and religious character (Journal, x. pp. 149-156). No grave-chamber has been found at lasili Kaia, nor in one or two cognate facades, and until a discovery which would settle the question is made, 86 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. Philologists who have studied the Phrygian texts, and every traveller who since Leake has visited the district, are agreed in accepting the testimony borne by the inscription, to the effect that this important work was executed in honour of king Midas. On the other hand, opinions are divided as to whether we are con- fronted by a real tomb, in which were formerly deposited the mortal remains of the prince, or a mere cenotaph, a commemora- tive monument, the use of which was to keep green the memory of a mythic ancestor, an eponym hero, the founder of the monarchy worshipped as a god. The idea that rises uppermost from the contemplation of the monument is naturally that of a sepulture, whilst the rank of the illustrious dead buried in it would account for the abnormal size and decoration of the facade ; but if a tomb, where is the funereal chamber ? Texier, one of the early explorers of the Phrygian necropolis, was at first inclined to see in the cavity formed by the false door, a niche in which the body was deposited, and formerly closed by a covering slab (Fig. 49). On maturer reflection, how- ever, he seems to have abandoned the notion, closer inspection having shown him that a recess 84 c. in capacity would ill accommo- date the corpse.1 We may add that if the body was placed, or rather squeezed, in the niche under discussion, a slab, of necessity very thin, with joints manifest to all, would have been the only safeguard against violation, and would have invited rather than repelled the vulgar curiosity and rapaciousness of subsequent generations. Lastly, had there been a stone to disguise the hollow, the surrounding rock would show the marks left by the covering slab ; but nothing of the kind occurs, nor is there the slightest indication of any mode of sealing having been here. And against any lurking doubts, we may adduce a false door in we feel justified in upholding our hypothesis whilst fully conscious of the difficulties which beset it. Then, too, I very much doubt if the small niche to the left-hand side of the monument, even enlarged as Professor Ramsay has it in Fig. 16, could ever have been a royal tomb, inasmuch as it is level with the ground and would have been too easily entered. Professor Ramsay (p. 186) states that in one inscription of the Midas rock there occurs a Phrygian word which may signify grave-chamber. The decision as to whether sikeneman presents the degree of probability which he attributes to it must be left to philologists. 1 Texier, after describing the Midas monument and other two near it, goes on to say, " Could it be possible to regard the central niche of the former as having served as chambered grave, nothing of the sort can be deduced from the latter " (Description, torn. i. pp. 154-158). .5 w FUNEREAL ARCHITECTURE. 89 which precisely the same arrangement is reproduced ; it is found in a fa9ade, which certainly belongs to the art and the people who created the Midas monument. It is the most westward specimen of Phrygian activity. As an advanced post, it rises alone of its kind on the slopes of Mysian Olympus, close to Harmanjik, in the middle valley of the Rhyndacus, and is called by the natives Delikli Tach (Holed Stone) (Fig. 50). On the information yielded by a passage of one of our predecessors we repaired thither, that we might observe it with the care it deserves.1 We will describe it in this place, as help- ful to understand in what light one is tempted to view the Midas monu- ment,when obliged to abandon the notion of the niche being a funereal chamber. Delikli Tach stands towards the extremity of a rocky ridge twisted into the most fan- tastic shapes. The FlG. 51. — Delikli Tach. Detail of doorway. Drawn by E. Guillaume. Explor. arche., Plate VI. thick mass advances like a promontory into a narrow gorge, at the bottom of which flows one of the many small affluents of the Rhyndacus. Its position over the path (probably an old road) which runs from Harmanjik to Mohimul, and the almost white colour of the cliff in which it is excavated, cause it to be seen at some distance. The broad massive rock has been rent into three unequal parts, with jagged outline of varying depth. The two 1 Researches, torn. i. p. 97. In Hamilton's book the Phrygian tomb is described in ten lines, and represented by one simple sketch. 9O HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. masses on the right and left have not been touched by the chisel, and preserve their uneven and natural saliences. But the central fragment was cut in such a way until a fa9ade-like aspect was obtained, terminating in a very pointed pediment. A false door, preceded by three steps, enframed in wide double posts, appears in the middle of the facade, at about one-third of the whole height of the rock (Fig. 51). The effect of the whole is satisfactory. The marriage of simple architectural shapes with the virgin por- tions of the rock is exceedingly happy ; we find here united the picturesque rugged outlines of nature, with the human interest supplied by a work of art, and the latter, as an index of the mind that created it, never fails to excite our curiosity and call forth our sympathies. The circular opening seen in the pseudo-door is certainly a late, perhaps a modern degradation, made by treasure-seekers to enable them to penetrate into the inner chamber, which they supposed to exist behind. The irregular cutting of the narrow aperture is enough to prove that it did not form part of the original plan, but was hastily pierced to the size of a dormer-window to allow a child to get in, when, being disappointed in their object, they suspended their operations. But for this, however, the real and only entrance, near the summit of the rock, would not have been suspected. Now, anybody by putting his head through the aperture can see the well into which the body was lowered, as it was conveyed to its last abode. The grave where the body was laid was no more than the bottom of the well or chimney, 4 m. 30 c. high, opening towards the middle of the vertical fa9ade. Reference to our per- spective section, through transverse axis (Fig. 52), shows that, as soon as the dead was placed in his stony bed, the mouth of the well was sealed down with care by two stout slabs, the marks of which — 60 c. apart — may still be seen. Their arrangement and the salience of the upper stone over the one below are indicated by dotted lines in plan (Fig. 53). As the walls of the well would not be seen, little care was bestowed on their appear- ance and effect, so that they were left almost in the rough ; the builders being content to invest the sepulchre with the utmost solidity, so as to guard it against unwelcome visitors and profana- tion. As at lasili Kaia, here also the false door is furnished with a double case ; the second or inner being set back from the first. The general arrangement is identical, and the differences are FIG. 52. — Delikli Tach. Perspective section through transverse axis. Drawn by C. Chipiez FUNEREAL ARCHITECTURE. 93 reducible to two. Thus, at Delikli Tach, upon the second FIG. 53. — Delikli Tach. flan of tomb. Drawn by E. Guillaume. lintel, which projects far out beyond the jambs and forms a kind of ancone (Figs. 54, 55), are three large intermitted tores.1 The adjustment at lasili Kaia was simpler, and exhibits neither tores nor an- cones. Then, too, no trace of painted orna- ment has been found about the Midas monu- ment, nor in the tombs around it. At Delikli Tach, on the other hand, many portions of the rock still exhibit stuc- coed patches, white, black, and red. The latter colour in especial abounds on the vertical face of lintel, F, and soffit, E (Fig. 54). Lin- UM. FIG. 54.— Delikli Tach. Profile of lintel on inner jamb. By E. Guillaume. Explor.arche., Plate VI. FIG. 55.— Delikli Tach. Profile of lintel on external jamb. By E. (iuillaume. Explor. Plate VI. tel and soffit — and, owing to its sheltered position, notably the latter — still preserve remnants of a scroll painted white on black — at least, so it looked to us— with red in the middle, which occupied the whole length (Fig. 56) 1 In Fig. 5 1 the left tore has disappeared, but has been restored in our illustration. 94 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. of the stone. Applied ornament seems also to have been resorted to in the decoration of this fa£ade ; for between the small circular niche which appears above the mouth of the well and the com- mencement of the frontal are holes which are far too regular not to be artifi- cial. They suggest the notion of havingserved FIG. 56.— Delikli Tach. Tinted scroll on soffit. E. Guillaume. Explor. archt., Plate VI. to fix metal plates. A good many niche-like hollows, seemingly artificial, look out of the rocks surrounding Delikli Tach. They are so ruinous, however, that plans and measurements are out of the question ; nor is it pos- sible to ad- v a n c e an opinion as to their original purpose. Here and there may also be traced re- mains of other cuttings. Thus, for in- stance, our general view (Fig. 50) ex- hibits steps FIG. 57. — Delikli Tach. Characters incised on jamb of door. Explor. archi., Plate VI. which formerly led to the top of the rocky mass, in the depth of which the tomb was hollowed. We found no vestige what- ever in the neighbourhood to mark the existence of a town which had here its necropolis. Nothing xvas gained by our study of the ground at this particular spot, and very little is to be hoped from two single letters — all that remains of an inscription, apparently very short, incised on the inner jamb of the false door on the left- hand side. Bits of colour still adhere in the hollow of the letters, which are reproduced, one-fifth of their actual size, in our illustra- tion from an impression taken from the stone (Fig. 57). FIG. 58.— Rock-cut fa FUNEREAL ARCHITECTURE. 97 If per se these two letters have no meaning whatever, they are valuable and of great interest in that they permit us to formulate a probable conjecture in regard to the relative age of the two monu- ments we have juxtaposed. They are not found in the alphabet which the Phrygians borrowed from Greece, instances of which are given in our cut representing inscriptions met with on the rocks around Nacoleia (Fig. 2). On the other hand, they have been identified in a somewhat more complicated form — one on a fusaiole from Hissarlik ; and the other, composed of two sets of parallel lines, both on fusaioles, a clay patera brought out of a tomb at Thymbra within the Troad, and in Cypriote inscriptions.1 The deduction to be drawn from the coincidence is the following. The two characters under discussion belonged to one of the many varieties of the alphabet we called Asianic, which, by way of reduction and simplification, was derived like the syllabary of Cyprus, where the older form persisted longer, from Hittite hieroglyphs, which obtained throughout Asia Minor before the introduction of Phoenician letters. Agreeably with this hypothesis, the Delikli Tach tomb would have been excavated before the Phrygians received from the Ionian Greeks the alphabet they made use of at lasili Ka'ia and the sepulchres surrounding it, and, as a natural consequence, it is older than the tombs in the neighbourhood of Nacoleia. Our supposition is in accord with the character of the monument and its close resemblance with the Midas rock. In both there is great contrast between the rude massive rocks enframing the fa£ade and the frontal surmounting it, whilst their shapes and architectural members exhibit intelligent proportion and symmetry. The only difference is that at Delikli Tach all was regulated on simple lines ; little or no effort was made to heighten the effect of the pediment and inner slab by ornament, which, like rich drapery, covers the whole facade at lasili Kaia. We may be permitted, therefore, to consider Delikli Tach as the first exemplar of a type invented by the Phrygians, a type they improved and per- fected in the upper valley of the Sangarius, where they had their political and religious centre for a period of two or three centuries. 1 PERROT, Explor. Arche., p. 107. Sayce, appendix written for Dr. Schliemann's English edition of Ilios. We have shown in another place that the letter on the right is not a double one, the repetition of the lines being purely ornamental ; the ligatures belong to the decadence of a system of writing, and not to its initial period. VOL. I. H 98 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. During our expedition in Asia Minor, we went straight from Delikli Tach to lasili Ka'ia, where the striking family likeness observable between the two monuments was brought home to my companion, M. Guillaume, and myself, with perhaps greater force than if a longer interval had interposed between one journey and another. Arguing from exterior analogies, we judged that they might extend to the interior. But we did not for a moment deem it possible that the sinking or false door could ever have been a grave. We were inclined to think that there was behind it a real mortuary chamber, entered by a shaft as at Delikli Tach. The next thing was to find the entrance, which we were disposed to seek at the summit of the rock, behind the broken finial crowning the pediment.1 One of our party, M. Delbet, volunteered to climb up the rock, so as to test the truth of our hypothesis ; but his attempts were unsuccessful, and as we could not spare the time it would have taken to procure ladders, ropes, and so forth for the purpose, we were fain to abandon the undertaking.2 Professor Ramsay, with true British tenacity of purpose and British elasticity of limb, succeeded in scaling the rocky wall, " whose top is so narrow that he could sit on the edge as on the back of a horse, pushing himself along with his hands." But he found no sign of an orifice to the well he was in quest of. He had, however, ample opportunity for observing that "as the stone is a soft conglomerate, a deep chimney of this kind would split it like a wedge." If the notion that the Midas rock is a tomb be persisted in, there is no other alternative but to seek the grave towards the foot of the rock ; or, rather, our only chance of discovering the entrance to the mortuary chamber is to clear away the silt and potsherds that have gathered in front of the fa£ade to the height of three or four metres. The spade alone can clinch the question. On the other hand, no instance of such an arrangement can be adduced in the whole Phrygian necropolis, Hence the question we have asked before may be asked again, as to whether we are con- fronted by a real sepulchre, or a simple commemorative monument, whose imposing dimensions, elaborate and skilful workmanship, are witnesses to the homage rendered by the princes of the eighth or seventh century B.C. to the eponym hero, the legendary ancestor, 1 Explor. Arche.t pp. 105, 106. 2 RAMSAY, The Rock Necropolis of Phrygia (Journal, 1882, pp. 16, 17). FIG. 59. — Rock-cut fa9ade. FUNEREAL ARCHITECTURE. ioi whose name they adopted and to whom they paid divine honours.1 Viewed in this light, the niche to the left was a shrine in which lamps and offerings were deposited as tokens of regard to the ancestral god.2 What tends to confirm our conjecture is the fact that in the same neighbourhood are other two sculptured frontispieces, whose tops, covered by a fine growth of pines, can be easily reached ; but where, despite diligent search, no well, nor the semblance of a pseudo-door, have been detected. The most important, because of its inscription — the longest known in Phrygia — is Fig. 58 (4 in plan). It consists of no less than five lines, three of which follow the slope of the roof below and above it on the native rock. Then a horizontal line appears on the frontal in the place usually occupied by the frieze in a Greek entablature, ending on the dexter hand on the rough stone ; whilst 1 We plead guilty to having misquoted Hesychius. The error arose from our having, contrary to our invariable custom, taken the lines from a book which happened to be close at hand, where the misprint occurred, and not from the original as we should have done. They should be read as follows : — Oi vvo Mt'Sa /3ao-iAev0cvT£S eW/SovTo, Kai &/J.WOV rov Mi'Sa 0eov, fy Ttves p.r)Tfpa O.VTOV CKTC Ti/i«